Court Opinion

ID: 9676524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:26:22.897602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:49.197588
License: Public Domain

GARY R. WADE, P.J.,
dissenting.
As acknowledged by the majority in its carefully considered opinion, trial judges are vested with broad discretionary powers in the conduct of a trial. Courts must monitor all attorney conduct and may di*312rect a remedy if the performance impedes the orderly administration of justice. United States v. Dinitz, 538 F.2d 1214, 1219 (5th Cir.1976). That authority necessarily includes the supervision of appointed counsel for indigent defendants. Moncier v. Ferrell, 990 S.W.2d 710 (Tenn.1998). An extraordinary appeal to this court on any issue relative to the supervision of the trial which requires immediate appellate review may be granted only in limited circumstances: (1) when the trial court has so far departed from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings as to require intervention; or (2) if necessary for a complete determination of the case. Tenn. R.App. P. 10.
In this instance, the majority concludes that the trial, judge has so far departed from the usual course, by disqualifying one of the two defense attorneys, that our intervention is necessary. I disagree. By disqualifying defense counsel, the trial judge has chosen an unusual, perhaps risky, course of action. The disqualification issue is well documented in this record and may serve as a basis for reversal on direct appeal and the grant of a new trial. While I strongly advocate the right to counsel and, in circumstances such as this, a qualified entitlement to the continued service of counsel, I also believe that the trial judge, vested with the duty and responsibility of supervision of the trial, must be afforded broad discretion in the conduct of the trial:
The right “cannot be insisted upon in a manner that will obstruct an orderly procedure in courts of justice, and deprive such courts of the exercise of their inherent powers to control the same.” The public has a strong interest in the prompt, effective, and efficient administration of justice; the public’s interest in the dispensation of justice that is not unreasonably delayed has great force.
State v. Zyla, 628 S.W.2d 39, 41-42 (Tenn.Crim.App.1981) (quoting United States v. Burton, 584 F.2d 485, 489-90 (D.C.Cir. 1978)). Someone must be in charge ... and held accountable for arbitrary decisions. This court should not, however, interfere at any time before the verdict absent overwhelming evidence that the trial judge has. abused its discretionary authority. -Any right to a continuation of counsel of choice “must be balanced against the requirements of the fair and proper administration of justice.” United States v. Micke, 859 F.2d 473, 480 (7th Cir.1988).
As acknowledged by the majority, there is some evidence of contumacious conduct on the part of defense counsel. For example, defense counsel typically begins each proceeding by lodging a renewal of a motion to disqualify the trial judge, often restating' the basis for the claim. That issue is preserved for posterity. Repeated renewals are unnecessary and wasteful of the resources already scarce in cases of this magnitude. So is the tedious re-assertion of requests for other relief, already either granted or denied, and well documented for purposes of appeal.
The indictment was issued nine years ago. There is already a voluminous record. The defendant is entitled to a speedy trial. The public is entitled to an accountable judiciary. The trial judge has made a threshold showing of counsel misconduct. I fear that the remedy fashioned by the majority may further delay the trial and render the trial judge powerless to conduct the trial in an authoritative and expedient manner. In summary, I would have ruled that the extraordinary appeal should not have been granted and would have delayed consideration of the disqualification issue until the conclusion of the case. In the event of an acquittal or a negotiated plea agreement, an appeal is unlikely. It is *313only in the event of a conviction and direct appeal that the disqualification issue is mature for resolution.
ORDER
PER CURIAM.
The defendant has moved for the court to “correct” the opinion previously filed in this case by deleting a paragraph. He argues that the paragraph is incorrect on the facts and that it will result in the trial court’s denying him his day in court on the issue of the legality of the defendant’s confinement on a municipal offense of soliciting prostitution.
We do not view the paragraph in question to be incorrect. The issue of the legality of the defendant’s confinement and the municipal court’s authority therefor has been previously litigated. If the defendant is seeking to raise a new reason for claiming that his confinement was illegal, which has not yet been heard, we remain confident that the trial court will entertain a motion to reconsider which succinctly asserts the new claim, the legal and factual bases for the claim, why the claim was not raised before, and why it should be heard now.
We must, though, admonish counsel, who apparently refuses to leave well enough alone. By two footnotes, one about one-half page of single-spaced print that appears smaller than is allowed by Rule 30(a), T.R.A.P., counsel essentially “responds” to our filed opinion. We view this to be wholly irrelevant to the motion before us, unnecessary, a waste of this court’s time and a waste of paper. It is the very type of action from which counsel should refrain.
Although probably best left ignored, we note that as a matter of substance, counsel’s footnote “response” renders us somewhat incredulous. Counsel claims that his repeated claim that the trial court was to apply a “heightened standard of due process of law” results in his “long standing practice ... to always state in a paragraph the standard the trial court was to apply to that motion.” In reviewing defendant’s motion practice in the records on appeal from the homicide and rape cases, of which we take judicial notice, we conclude that counsel’s “long standing practice” appears to be the exception, not the rule.
Counsel also claims that his repeated motions to recuse — footnoted in every recent motion he has filed — result from his fear of waiving the issue. Given counsel’s legal experience and expertise, we view this claim to be disingenuous. Rather, we believe repetitive, rote filings of the same motion for the purpose of guarding generally against waiver border on abdication of responsibility to use professional judgment. Prolific motion practice may be justified through zealous advocacy, but such does not justify repeated motions that are wholly unnecessary when given a modicum of reasonable thought. Counsel needs to give all his assertions in his pleadings his highly capable considered judgment, not boilerplate treatment.
In consideration of our view of the opinion, we deny the defendant’s motion to correct the opinion.
TIPTON, J., WADE, P.J., and OGLE, J.