Court Opinion

ID: 9630212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:05:17.34978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:34.025016
License: Public Domain

*621Dissenting Opinion by
Chief Justice MINTON.
Respectfully, I dissent because I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that this record supports the trial court’s implicit finding that Depp’s waiver of his constitutional right to counsel was “knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.”1
On the heels of Depp’s withdrawal of his request to represent himself, the Commonwealth stated: “Your honor, just so we’re clear, if he’s getting an attorney — one of the things that I was going to file if he was representing himself is a motion to prevent him from cross-examining the victims, and there’s some case law on that — .” The Commonwealth and the trial court discussed the motion and other matters in the case, and then there was a moment of silence. Upon reflection of the Commonwealth’s statement pertaining to cross-examination, Depp broke the silence by stating: “By the way, your honor, if I can’t cross-examine the people that’s brought me here, then I don’t think I would take an attorney, but if I can, then — .” The following dialogue ensued:
COURT: Well, okay—
DEPP: I want to be the one asking the questions. These people that’s brought me here—
COMMONWEALTH: Okay, which, we’ll go ahead and file a motion on that asking you to prohibit him— DEPP: Prohibit me?
COURT: Okay, let me make sure that I understand what you’re asking me, Mr. Depp.
DEPP: These people that’s brought these allegations against me— COURT: Okay.
DEPP: Well, I should have the right to come in front of you, with all due respect, in front of the jury, with all due respect, and ask these people these questions, the things that they say that I have done to them, times, places—
COURT: Okay, let me make sure that I, I had thought that you had decided you wanted me to appoint you a lawyer.
DEPP: Yes, I do.
COURT: If I appoint you a lawyer, then your attorney asks those questions. You don’t. Now, you can confer with your attorney. You can say—
DEPP: Well, okay, I don’t want no attorney. I’m just going to not have an attorney.
COMMONWEALTH: Which, your hon- or, that would be part of our motion because there is case law—
COURT: Okay, we’ll deal with that when the time comes.
COMMONWEALTH: So, if he’s deciding not to have an attorney now, are we going to have a hearing?
DEPP: I just don’t know. Let’s just have a hearing.
COURT: Okay. Let’s proceed then with this, what I have to do to let you represent yourself. All right. I’ve got to make a determination whether you are competent to represent yourself. Now, that doesn’t mean that you graduated from law school. It just *622means that you are familiar enough with the procedure that you can represent yourself. So let me ask this, have you ever been determined, Mr. Depp, to be incompetent by any court?
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: Have you ever been treated for any mental disease or defect?
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: Have you — are you addicted to any controlled substances?
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: Are you under the influence of any drugs or alcohol today?
DEPP: Absolutely not.
COURT: Now, I want to — I’ve got to warn you that in court, we have rules of procedure, you know, like who goes first and who asks the questions, then when it’s your time to ask questions, when it’s their time to ask questions. Do you understand that you will be expected to follow those same rules?
DEPP: Yes, but I can object—
COURT: You can object—
DEPP: At any time?
COURT: Right, but if I make a ruling on an objection, and I overrule your objection, then it has to go the way I say. Do you understand that?
DEPP: Yes, you the man. Yes sir, I understand that.
COURT: Now, I need — the disadvantage of you representing yourself is, even though you have some experience in court, you didn’t go to law school—
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: But you understand that I’m going to make you follow the rules even though you didn’t.
DEPP: I understand.
COURT: So that’s a hazard of representing yourself.
DEPP: I understand.
COURT: Now, do you want then to represent yourself?
DEPP: Yes, I do.
COURT: Okay, I need for you to put that request in writing.
At this point, the trial court provided Depp with paper; and Depp wrote and signed the following request:
Sir, I would like to represent myself in both these cases because [I] am afraid that all the facts will not come out at trial if [I] use [a] public defender [and] want badly to question my accuser[s][and] witnesses[.]
The trial court then continued with the questioning:
COURT: Now just a couple of more questions I want to ask you, Mr. Depp. Did anyone make any threats against you to cause you to make this decision to represent yourself?
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: Did anyone make any promises to you to cause you to want to represent yourself?
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: Has any member of the court, law enforcement, corrections, anyone else, tried to convince you that you should represent yourself?
DEPP: No, sir.
COURT: So are you acting of your own free will?
DEPP: Yes, sir.
COURT: Okay I’m going to make a finding that you can represent yourself.
And the trial court made the following written entry in the record: “Pursuant to written request and after a hearing per *623Faretta v. Calif.[2]the Defendant may represent himself.”
I commend the trial court for its patience in addressing Depp’s indecision about what he truly wanted, but I believe that the hearing was insufficient to ensure that Depp’s decision to forego counsel was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. More specifically, the trial court erred by informing Depp that if he appointed counsel, the attorney — not Depp — would conduct the examination of any witnesses. In Kentucky, “an accused may make a limited waiver of counsel, specifying the extent of services he desires, and he then is entitled to counsel whose duty will be confined to rendering the specified kind of services (within, of course, the normal scope of counsel services).”3 Here, the trial court prophylacticly foreclosed Depp’s right to make a limited waiver of counsel by telling Depp that if it appointed counsel for him, Depp would not be able to cross-examine the Commonwealth’s witnesses. It is apparent, based both on Depp’s statements in the hearing and his written request, that the desire personally to question the Commonwealth’s witnesses was the heart of his desire to waive counsel. Of course, a defendant is not necessarily entitled personally to cross-examine each witness, especially the victim.4 But a defendant proceeding with standby counsel should be able at least to participate in cross-examination by preparing questions he desires his standby counsel to ask his accusers.5 Or, presumably, a defendant proceeding with standby counsel may personally be allowed to cross-examine some of the Commonwealth’s witnesses (for example, investigating police officers who would not generally be as emotionally involved or subject to intimidation as would an alleged victim). Likewise, a self-represented defendant may presumably personally cross-examine at least some of the Commonwealth’s witnesses while also, if necessary, at least being able to write questions for the trial judge to ask of other witnesses (i.e., the victim).6 Moreover, a trial court should hold an evidentiary hearing before declining to permit a self-represented litigant to cross-examine witnesses.7
In the case at hand, however, the trial court seemingly foreclosed, without explanation or evidentiary hearing, any possibility that Depp would be able personally to cross-examine any of the Commonwealth’s witnesses or to take any other meaningful role, such as assisting his counsel in the preparation of questions. In other words, the trial court erred, in my view, by presenting the questioning of witnesses as an all-or-nothing proposition.
Moreover, the colloquy between the trial court and Depp did not contain a thorough warning by the trial court of the benefits Depp would relinquish if he persisted in his desire to proceed without an attorney. Instead, the trial court merely told Depp that even though Depp had not gone to law school, he would be expected to follow *624the procedural rules of court. This cursory exchange was insufficient fully to “warn the defendant of the hazards arising from and the benefits relinquished by waiving counsel.”8 Of course, although I do not believe it wise or necessary to set forth definitively what a trial court must discuss with a defendant who seeks to proceed without an attorney, I note that many of the typical facets of a proper colloquy between the trial judge and the defendant have been set forth in a learned treatise and cases from other jurisdictions.9
Additionally, I note that the trial court did not make any oral or written findings of fact or conclusions of law regarding Depp’s desire to proceed without counsel or to have standby counsel, except to note that Depp had been granted the opportunity to represent himself. A trial court is required to make findings on the record as to whether the defendant’s waiver of the right to counsel was made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.10
Of course, we should not require trial courts to recite any specific litany while conducting Favetta-type hearings. But I believe a trial court is required to provide an adequate, meaningful, and accurate explanation of the basic constitutional rights that a defendant seeks to waive in order to ensure that the defendant makes a decision “with eyes open.” 11 That fundamental requirement was not met in this case.
Finally, I would conclude that the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Iowa v. Tovar,12 which the Commonwealth *625argues has superseded Hill, is clearly distinguishable from the case at hand because Tovar did not involve a request to proceed with self-representation at trial. Rather, as the Supreme Court itself held, Tovar involved “the extent to which a trial judge, before accepting a guilty plea from an uncounseled defendant, must elaborate on the right to representation.” 13 Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court held that no magic words were required for a defendant validly to waive the right to counsel.14 With that unremarkable proposition, I do not quarrel. But I find Hill to be a more appropriate statement of Kentucky’s more expansive law regarding a defendant’s right to self-representation because we have previously noted that a defendant possesses somewhat more expansive rights in the self-representation area under Section 11 of the Kentucky Constitution than under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.15 And Tovar itself recognized that a state was free to adopt a different approach.16 So I disagree with the Commonwealth’s assertion that Hill is no longer valid and binding.
There is more that causes me concern about the substance of this hearing. In the hearing, the trial court did not inform Depp of the nature of the charges against him and the range of punishments. I am not looking for magic words, incantations, or a scripted monologue by the trial court. I am simply looking for an adequate, meaningful, and accurate explanation of the basic constitutional right that Depp was relinquishing to ensure that he made his decision “with eyes open” as required by Faretta. In my opinion, that did not happen here. Having reviewed the record, I would conclude that the trial court did not provide sufficient guidance and warnings to Depp so as to allow Depp to -waive his vital constitutional right to an attorney with fully open eyes. Our precedent clearly holds that these types of errors are structural and cannot be harmless.17 So I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
SCHRODER, J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. Hill v. Commonwealth, 125 S.W.3d 221, 226 (Ky.2004) (holding that a trial court has three clear duties to perform in situations in which a defendant seeks to waive his or her constitutional right to counsel: (1) the trial court must hold a hearing during which it questions the defendant on the issue of whether the waiver of counsel is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary; (2) "during the hearing, the trial court must warn the defendant of the hazards arising from and the benefits relinquished by waiving counsel[;]” (3) the trial court "must make a finding on the record that the waiver is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.”.).

. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975).

. Wake v. Barker, 514 S.W.2d 692, 696 (Ky. 1974) (recognizing hybrid representation and expressing conclusion "that this is embraced within the right-to-counsel and equal-protection provisions of the federal and state constitutions.”).

. Partin v. Commonwealth, 168 S.W.3d 23, 27 (Ky.2005) (holding that a trial court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to permit defendant who was acting as his own co-counsel from personally cross-examining alleged victims who defendant had allegedly threatened and intimidated).

. Id. at 28-29.

. Id. at 28.

. Id.

. Hill, 125 S.W.3d at 226.

. See CJS Criminal Law § 377 (2008) ("The court should generally hold a discussion with the accused. In accordance with the rules concerning what the accused must know in order to make a valid waiver, the court generally should expressly advise the accused of the disadvantages or dangers of self-representation, the fact that the accused must follow technical rules and rules of criminal procedure and evidence, the nature of the charges and possible penalties, defenses or mitigating factors, the right to counsel, and the right to self-representation.
The court should advise the accused of the technical problems the accused may encounter in acting as his or her own counsel and risks he or she takes if the defense is unsuccessful, that the lack of knowledge of the law may impair the accused's ability to defend himself or herself, and that his or her dual role as attorney and accused might hamper effectiveness of his or her defense, and of the difficulties in acting as his or her own counsel. The defendant should be advised that, in addition to defenses, the defendant has rights that, if not timely asserted, may be lost permanently, and that if errors occur and are not timely objected to, objection to these errors may be lost permanently. When a defendant seeks to represent himself, the district court should inquire of the defendant about the complexity of the case to ensure that the defendant understands his or her decision and, in particular, the difficulties he or she will face proceeding in proper person. Accordingly, if a defendant willingly waives counsel and chooses self-representation with an understanding of its dangers, including the difficulties presented by a complex case, he or she has the right to do so. In addition, before allowing the criminal defendant to waive right to counsel, the court should specifically advise the defendant that it would be unwise not to accept assistance of counsel.”) (footnotes omitted). See also United States v. McDowell, 814 F.2d 245, 251-52 (6th Cir.1987) (setting forth in an appendix a guideline for federal trial judges to follow in situations where a defendant expresses a desire for self-representation).

. Hill, 125 S.W.3d at 226 (holding that the trial court "must make a finding on the record that the waiver is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.”).

. Faretta, 422 U.S. at 835, 95 S.Ct. 2525 (quoting Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942)).

. 541 U.S. 77, 124 S.Ct. 1379, 158 L.Ed.2d 209 (2004).

. Id. at 81, 124 S.Ct. 1379.

. Id. at 88, 124 S.Ct. 1379.

. See, e.g., Deno v. Commonwealth, 177 S.W.3d 753, 757 (Kv.2005) ("The wording of Section 11 of the Kentucky Constitution, unlike that of the similar provision which appears in the United Slates Constitution, guarantees a criminal defendant the right: (I) to represent himself pro se; (2) to be represented by counsel; or (3) to have hybrid representation.”) (footnote omitted).

. 541 U.S. at 94, 124 S.Ct. 1379.

. Hill, 125 S.W.3d at 228-29.