Court Opinion

ID: 9745596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 23:11:57.830047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:02.848510
License: Public Domain

*861WOODS (A. M.), P. J.
I respectfully dissent.
I do not believe that the superior court exceeded its authority under Government Code section 27706 by ordering the public defender, who had answered ready, to remain present during the trial of the now in propria persona defendant, and “to be ready to step in and take this trial over” at any point during the trial.
In Ligda v. Superior Court (1970) 5 Cal.App.3d 811 [85 Cal.Rptr. 744], the court held that the public defender’s statutory duty to defend indigent defendants encompassed more than formal representation and that the trial court was empowered to appoint tire public defender as standby counsel.
The court observed, “The legislative intent in the progressive expansion of the duties of the public defender [citations] seems clear. The purpose is, to keep pace with the progressive requirements of due process of law, declared in the decisions of our Supreme Courts, in providing counsel for indigent defendants. The word ‘defense’ is clearly to be interpreted as embracing ‘the assistance of counsel for his defense’ as specified in the Sixth Amendment. ... To assist in summoning witnesses, as the trial court indicated Mr. Camden should do under the assignment made, was entirely germane to the defense. [Citations.] ['][].... [f] To defend a person on trial before a court, is, in our opinion, not equivalent to the provision to conduct the defense of such a person. While the first is necessarily included in the latter, the defense of a person may, as here, embrace much more. [Citations.]” (5 Cal.App.3d at p. 825.)
Furthermore, the Ligda court went on to say that the appointment of the public defender as standby counsel was an action within the inherent power of the court. “It is true a public defender is not per se a court attache. [Citation.] Yet, a public defender is such a ‘ministerial officer,’ and an attorney is a ‘person specially vested with ministerial powers in relation to the courts of justice’ (Code Civ. Proc., part I, tables IV and V headings and contents); and in either capacity was clearly embraced as one of ‘all other persons in any manner connected with a judicial proceeding’ before the court (Code Civ. Proc., § 128).” (5 Cal.App.3d at p. 826.) Accordingly, “[t]he deputy public defender who had been ordered to assist in conduct of the case was a person connected with a judicial proceeding before the court. Upon relieving him as counsel in a pending case, the court had the power to require him, both as an officer of the court as an attorney, and in his official capacity, to continue to ‘assist’ the defendant, pursuant to the constitutional mandate. As an attorney, his consent to such a role had been manifested. As public defenders, neither Mr. Camden nor his superior, Mr. Ligda, had power to defy the valid order of the court.” (Ibid.)
*862While I acknowledge the factual distinction between Ligda, in which the public defender initially consented to standby status, and this case, in which she did not, nonetheless, the reasoning of Ligda leads me to conclude that this difference does not deprive the court of the authority to require the public defender to serve as standby counsel. The need for this authority is exemplified by the trial court’s expressed concern in this case that Mr. Jackson might decide not to proceed or “act up” in the courtroom and have to be restrained or removed. “I suspect Mr. Jackson may try that and you are ordered to be ready to step in.”
While I agree with the majority’s final observation regarding the court’s authority to appoint private counsel to standby status, that would have caused substantial delay in this case. The potential availability of private counsel is not sufficient reason for me to join in the majority’s analysis or its conclusion which, while purporting to distinguish Ligda, in fact disagrees with it, without, in my view, sufficient justification. I believe that Ligda is controlling authority and supports the action of the trial court herein.
I would deny the writ.