Court Opinion

ID: 9802937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 15:08:19.595566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:02:26.219834
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority.
I agree that no clearly established Supreme Court law requires a district court to do more than inform a defendant of the maximum penalties for the offenses he was chargéd with at the time he decided td represent himself. See Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 835, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2541, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975); see also Iowa v. Tovar, 541 U.S. 77, 87-94, 124 S.Ct. 1379, 1387-90, 158 L.Ed.2d 209 (2004). Similarly, I agree that there is not a sufficient basis for extending the Court’s prior holdings regarding advice on maximum penalties to the issues presented in this case. See White v. Woodall, — U.S. -, -, 134 S.Ct. 1697, 1705-07, 188 L.Ed.2d 698 (2014). Moreover, Arrendondo did not. exhaust his compulsory process claim in the courts of Nevada, and I agree that his failure to do so bars our consideration of that claim.
However, I am reluctant to rule on issues that are not necessary to our decision or to engage in lengthy discus'sions or musings that need not be pursued at this time. Indeed, I see great danger wheh we say more than is required to decide the case before us; our doing so may well create unintended reefs that others must navigate in the future if they are.to avoid disaster. For example, I find much of the discussion contained in part II.A.2.a. essentially unnecessary, and that the conclusion that any Tovar requirement must apply in the trial context (whatever that means for the whole period from the beginning of a case to its termination) is especially unnecessary and problematic. Similarly, I see no need to speculate about what we might or might-not do if this were a direct appeal, as the majority does at pages 1135-36. And, I see no need to opine on what we could or would do had Arrendondo presented his case in a different manner in the state courts. See page 1140 — 41 of the majority opinion.
In short, while I wholeheartedly agree in the result and in the analysis necessary to the result, I am not willing to run the risk of unintended consequences that comes from saying too much. I, therefore, do not join in the majority’s divagations and unnecessary assertions. Thus, I respectfully concur in the result only.