Court Opinion

ID: 9429158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:50.582835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.478242
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice Stevens joins, concurring in the judgment.
The narrow question before the Court is whether the state trial judge should have inquired about the probable length of attorney Goldfine’s incapacitation in order to balance respondent’s right to counsel against society’s interest in the prompt and efficient administration of justice. I agree with the Court that the Court of Appeals erred in construing respondent’s complaints on the first day of trial as indicating a desire to be represented by Goldfine. Absent a timely request by respondent to postpone the trial until Goldfine recovered from his illness, the state trial judge had no reason to inquire into the likely length of Goldfine’s unavailability. For this reason, I concur in the Court’s reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I also agree with the Court that, “[h]ad the Court of Appeals examined the record more carefully, it would have had no occasion to consider, let alone announce, a new constitutional rule under the Sixth Amendment.” Ante, at 14. It seems to me, however, that this Court, after examining the record carefully and finding it “dispositive,” ante, at 4, similarly has “no occasion to consider” the Sixth Amendment issue. Accordingly, I find the Court’s rather broad-ranging dicta about the right to counsel and the concerns of victims (deserving of sympathy as they may be) to be unnecessary in this case.