Court Opinion

ID: 9797084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:12:59.760885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:31.253017
License: Public Domain

MANNHEIMER, Judge,
concurring.
I write separately to clarify the reasons why I join my colleagues in affirming Judge Esch’s handling of the dispute between Moore and his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Michelle Hall.
The record amply demonstrates that the relationship between the two was marked by frustration and (on Moore’s part) distrust. The record also demonstrates that Moore and Hall had very different ideas about how Moore’s case should be defended. But, as Judge Esch correctly perceived, it was not his job to referee this dispute between lawyer and client. Moreover, as Judge Esch also correctly perceived, Moore’s frustration with Hall, his distrust of Hall, and his disagreement with Hall concerning litigation strategy, singly or in combination, did not constitute a basis for removing Hall from the case.
An indigent defendant who has court-appointed counsel has a very limited right to demand a change of attorney. As we stated in Mute v. State, 954 P.2d 1384, 1385 (Alaska App.1998), the test is whether “relations between attorney and client [have] deteriorated to the point where [the attorney is] incapable of effective communication [with the client] or objective decision-making [about the case]”.
*1095Despite the antagonism and distrust that Moore felt toward Hall, the record does not show that communication between attorney and client had completely broken down, or that Hall had lost her ability to objectively evaluate and pursue Moore’s interests. Thus, Judge Esch correctly refused Moore’s demands for a new lawyer.
Moore’s case is complicated by the fact that, just before Moore’s trial was to begin, and in the middle of the dispute about whether Hall should continue to serve as Moore’s attorney, Hall discovered — and announced to Judge Esch — that she had been laboring under a major misunderstanding of the law applicable to Moore’s case.
Moore was charged with attempted first-degree sexual assault, attempted second-degree sexual assault, and first-degree burglary. All three of these charges require proof of a defendant’s specific intent to commit an ulterior crime.1 As to the burglary charge, the State was obliged to prove that Moore entered T.F.’s apartment with the intent of sexually assaulting her. As to the sexual assault charges, the State had to prove that Moore assaulted T.F. with the intent of achieving sexual penetration.
Because all three charges required proof of the culpable mental state “intentionally” as defined in AS 11.81.900(a)(1), intoxication was a potential defense to these charges.2 And, as explained in the lead opinion, the evidence suggested that Moore had been very intoxicated when he returned to T.F.’s apartment and assaulted her.
But Hall had been preparing for trial under the mistaken assumption that the relevant culpable mental state for the three charges against Moore was “knowingly” as defined in AS 11.81.900(a)(2) — a culpable mental state that is not negated by intoxication.3 Thus, Hall had not been pursuing an intoxication defense.
When Hall discovered her error, she confessed the problem both to Moore and to the superior court. But when Hall explained that she wanted to delay the trial so that she could have more time to plan and assemble an intoxication defense, Moore adamantly refused to agree to any delay. He insisted that his trial begin as scheduled.
Hall did in fact pursue an intoxication defense at Moore’s trial. She did not present any expert testimony in support of this defense, but (from the present record) it is not clear what expert testimony would have been available if there had been more time to prepare, or whether this expert testimony would have added much to the evidence of Moore’s drinking and behavior that was already before the jury. In any event, if Moore wishes to pursue those issues, he must file a petition for post-conviction relief.
The issue currently before this Court is whether Hall’s incipient malpractice adds anything to Moore’s argument that Judge Esch should have dismissed Hall from the case and given Moore a new attorney. It does not.
Hall forthrightly admitted her mistake and advised Moore of the things that might be done to recover from this mistake. One of these things was to ask the superior court to delay the trial. After receiving this advice, Moore refused to take it.
It may be true that Moore’s decision was attributable, at least in part, to his ill feelings toward Hall. But this does not change the fact that Moore made a knowing decision to insist that his trial begin as scheduled, even though Hall had told him that the lack of additional time might prevent her from investigating or presenting the intoxication defense to the fullest extent.
This episode does not show that communication between Hall and Moore had effectively ceased, or that Hall had lost the ability to objectively evaluate Moore’s case and advise him concerning trial strategy.
*1096For these reasons, I join my colleagues in rejecting Moore’s claim that Judge Esch should have dismissed Hall and appointed another attorney.

. See AS 11.31.100(a) (attempt); AS 11.46.300(a) (first-degree burglary).

. See Hutchison v. State, 27 P.3d 774, 775 (Alaska App.2001).

.AS 11.81.900(a)(2) states, in pertinent part: "[A] person who is unaware of conduct or a circumstance of which the person would have been aware had that person not been intoxicated acts 'knowingly' with respect to that conduct or circumstance!)]