Court Opinion

ID: 9668999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:36:13.62477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:51.092322
License: Public Domain

WOMACK, J.,
filed a concurring opinion in which KELLER, P.J., and JOHNSON, J., joined.
In addition to the reasons for denying relief that the Court gives in its opinion, which I join, I wish to add another: The applicant waived, at trial, the complaint that he brings today.
As the Court’s account says, the applicant chose and hired an attorney (ante, at 750), spurned the trial court’s efforts to give him the assistance of another attorney (ante, at 750) or to let him change attorneys (ante, at 751). He insisted on going to trial with the counsel of his choice. This was his right, which the trial court could not have denied him.
The careful trial court, seeing that the applicant had chosen poorly, provided him with the assistance of a qualified attorney at the public’s expense.
When it was obvious that his chosen counsel fell asleep during trial (see ante, at 751), the trial court asked the applicant if he wanted to have the trial continue in the charge of a capable- attorney (again, at public expense). The applicant refused. (Ante, at 751, n. 9.)
Having resisted the efforts of the trial court to give him the effective assistance of counsel,' and having knowingly exercised his right to continue being represented by a lawyer who slept rather than a capable lawyer, the applicant may not now complain about his choice.