Court Opinion

ID: 9784722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:52:21.958916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:58.330439
License: Public Domain

STUART, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the Court’s decision to grant Thomas Robert Lane’s application for rehearing and to withdraw the opinion issued on May 27, 2011, and quash the writ. I disagree with the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals that the trial court erred in removing Lane’s appointed counsel. I believe that the record will reflect that a conflict of interest or the potential for a conflict of interest existed and that the trial court properly granted the State’s motion to dismiss Lane’s appointed counsel. Moreover, if I were to determine that the trial court erred in dismissing Lane’s appointed counsel, I would conclude that the error was not structural. The proper inquiry is whether the indigent defendant suffered prejudice by the erroneous removal of court-appointed counsel. Cf. State v. Reeves, 11 So.3d 1031 (La.2009); Daniels v. Lafler, 501 F.3d 735, 740 (6th Cir.2007); and United States v. Basham, 561 F.3d 302 (4th Cir.2009).