Court Opinion

ID: 9639409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:16:20.616378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:42:20.374194
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that when a court-appointed attorney, on behalf of an indigent defendant, asks that volunteer counsel be allowed to participate in the trial without compensation, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel of the defendant’s choice must give way to the “next lawyer up” rules of “the wheel.” Because this constitutional protection is fundamental to due process, I cannot agree that it is trumped by article 26.04 of the code of criminal procedure. I therefore dissent from the majority opinion.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized that the right to select counsel of one’s choice is considered the core meaning of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to counsel.1 A trial court’s erroneous deprivation of this right is structural error and not subject to harmless error analysis.2 It has long been recognized that “the Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to be represented by an otherwise qualified attorney whom that defendant can afford to hire, or who is willing to represent the defendant even though he is without funds.”3 Our sister court in Waco has held that a trial court who imposed its own local rule prohibiting a criminal defendant’s retaining multiple attorneys, each to handle limited portions of the proceedings, “abrogatefd] the constitutional right of defendants to choose counsel ....”4
The issue here is whether an indigent defendant is entitled to the same right to counsel as a defendant who can retain as many lawyers as he deems necessary. The issue is not whether a defendant can demand appointment of his chosen counsel, but whether a volunteer lawyer can assist appointed counsel pro bono.
The State argues that if Appellant has a volunteer attorney, he has retained counsel and is not indigent and, therefore, is not *345entitled to appointed counsel. There is no evidence that the additional attorney’s act of volunteering to represent Appellant without compensation defeated the trial court’s prior determination of indigence. Nor would the determination of indigence be defeated if appointed counsel had paid counsel out of her own funds to assist with Appellant’s case.
The trial court did not base its refusal on the ground that allowing volunteer counsel to participate would defeat Appellant’s indigent status, nor did the trial court base its refusal on the ground that allowing volunteer counsel would delay the trial or impede justice. Both lawyers were prepared to proceed with the trial. The only reason stated by the trial court for denying Appellant the assistance of volunteer counsel was that volunteer counsel was not on the wheel.
The trial court has shed light on a very real problem that trial courts in criminal cases must deal with daily. Trial courts are obligated to provide appointed counsel to indigent defendants as both a Sixth Amendment guarantee and a due process protection, but the legislature tells the trial courts how to do that job.5 The trial court is allowed to match the attorney to the specific case or to the specific defendant only if the defendant is a non-English speaker or deaf.6 Otherwise, the trial court must give every lawyer a fair shot at the appointments by complying with the legislature’s mandate that
[a] court shall appoint an attorney from a public appointment list using a system of rotation, unless the court appoints an attorney under Subsection (f), (h), or (i). The court shall appoint attorneys from among the next five names on the appointment list in the order in which the attorneys’ names appear on the list, unless the court makes a finding of good cause on the record for appointing an attorney out of order. An attorney who is not appointed in the order in which the attorney’s name appears on the list shall remain next in order on the list.7
The system used to appoint lawyers must “ensure that appointments are allocated among qualified attorneys in a manner that is fair, neutral, and nondiscriminatory.”8 The system does not recognize that a lawyer who meets the general qualifications for felony appointments may not be qualified to handle a specific kind of case. Civil practitioners have long recognized that one size does not fit all. A lawyer may have many years of experience handling employment discrimination cases but not have the expertise to handle a medical malpractice case. Similarly, a lawyer may have successfully handled many murder cases but not be confident to sit first chair in a case that depends on DNA experts. The trial court is in a better position to fit the lawyer to the case than is a legislative mandate that seeks to protect lawyers’ access to court appointment fees.
Here, the trial judge believed that she could not allow volunteer counsel with thirteen years’ experience to assist a court-appointed lawyer with only eight years’ experience because the volunteer lawyer was not on the wheel. Although an indigent defendant has no right to insist that the trial court appoint a specific lawyer,9 *346interpreting the statute to prohibit volunteer co-counsel defeats a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The appointed lawyer did not ask the trial court to appoint the second lawyer; she did not ask to delay the trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal .Appeals has addressed the issue of volunteer counsel in relation to a volunteer prosecutor.10 The court held that the trial court had the discretion to allow “volunteer counsel to appear and assist the state in the prosecution where the prosecuting attorneys were not only present to conduct the prosecution but entirely able and well qualified to protect every interest of the state.” 11 This discretion is limited when “appearance of volunteer counsel could and would operate to prejudice the rights of the accused or to lead the jury to believe that sentiment was so aroused against the accused as to cause counsel to volunteer to assist the state.”12 In sum, whether to allow volunteer counsel is within the discretion of the trial court except when allowing or, I submit, denying the appearance of volunteer counsel negatively impacts the right of an accused to a fair trial. The record is clear in the case before us that the State had two lawyers. Two lawyers for the defense was not unreasonable.
Because Appellant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel was abridged by the trial court’s refusal to allow volunteer counsel based solely on her absence from the wheel, I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that Appellant was not allowed the assistance of more experienced volunteer counsel. Because the trial court’s error is structural and therefore not subject to harmless error analysis,13 I would reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand this case to the trial court for a new trial.

. United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 147-48, 126 S.Ct. 2557, 2563, 165 L.Ed.2d 409 (2006).

. Id. at 150, 152, 126 S.Ct. at 2564, 2566.

. Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered v. United States, 491 U.S. 617, 624-25, 109 S.Ct. 2646, 2652, 105 L.Ed.2d 528 (1989).

. Kozacki v. Knize, 883 S.W.2d 760, 763 (Tex.App.-Waco 1994, orig. proceeding).

. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 26.04 (Vernon 2009).

. Id. art. 26.04(c).

. Id. art. 26.04(a).

. Id. art. 26.04(b)(6).

. See King v. State, 29 S.W.3d 556, 566 (Tex.Crim.App.2000); Thomas v. State, 550 S.W.2d 64, 68 (Tex.Crim.App.1977).

. Loshe v. State, 160 Tex.Crim. 561, 272 S.W.2d 517, 520 (1954).

. Id.

. Id.

. See Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. at 150, 152, 126 S.Ct. at 2564, 2566.