Court Opinion

ID: 9616140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:43:49.749113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:17.113433
License: Public Domain

SILVERMAN, Circuit Judge,
with whom TALLMAN, Circuit Judge, joins,
dissenting:
The majority holds that Bradley’s wrongful exclusion from a critical hearing justifies reversal despite an explicit determination by the California Court of Appeal that the exclusion was harmless. Furthermore, it criticizes the trial court’s denial of Bradley’s request to replace appointed counsel with retained counsel one month before trial, but ignores the trial court’s reasoning which is amply supported by the facts — Bradley’s poor track record of maintaining relationships with previous retained counsel. My colleagues’ de novo analysis flies in the face of those facts and the reasoning offered by the California courts, the law of our circuit, and the constraints of AEDPA. I respectfully dissent.
I. Facts
Bradley is alleged to have shot and killed the driver of a car during an attempted carjacking on January 17, 1996. She was charged with attempted robbery, carjacking, possession of a short-barreled shotgun, and murder in the first degree.
Bradley was first represented by Patrick Hutchinson and Jack Montgomery. On March 15, 1996, the trial court disqualified Montgomery due to a conflict of interest. Marteen Miller replaced Montgomery on June 10.
On October 18, 1996, Melvin Sacks replaced Hutchinson and Miller, and was thereafter joined by Jamie Thistlewaite. The original trial date of April 14, 1997 was continued twice, first to July 18, 1997 *1105and then to March 2, 1998. At some point during this period, Bradley’s father stopped paying for Sacks’s services. Sacks then ceased all work on the case, causing an “irreconcilable breakdown” between him and Bradley.
On November 12, 1997, Bradley filed a motion to substitute Kerry Steigerwalt as her attorney and to continue the trial to April 1998. A second attorney, Cynthia Dunlevy, joined later. Both Steigerwalt and Dunlevy were retained by Mr. Bradley for his daughter. The trial court granted the motion with the following admonition:
I want to make it very clear to the defendant and her father this will be the last change in counsel. We’ve had quite a few competent lawyers coming through the defense of the matter. This has to be the end of the changes in that regard.
On March 4, 1998, Steigerwalt and Dun-levy requested that they be discharged from representation. They alleged the following: (1) Mr. Bradley had not paid them nor their experts in accordance with the retainer agreement, causing financial hardship, (2) Mr. Bradley insisted that they obtain continuances, became distressed when continuances were not sought, and strategized a plan to secure more time, and (3) Mr. Bradley’s actions interfered with the attorney-client relationship.
The trial court conducted an in-chambers hearing with the Sonoma County district attorney, the trial prosecutor, a county investigator, Dunlevy, and two new defense lawyers — Chris Andrian and Steve Gallenson. Bradley was not present. At this point, Dunlevy expressed concern that Mr. Bradley had hired independent private investigators to surveil and collect personal information about the prosecutor, which raised understandable security concerns for the prosecutor’s safety. Furthermore, Dunlevy suggested that Mr. Bradley had a psychological hold on his daughter. He insisted on participating in conversations between his daughter and her lawyers. He also actively discouraged his daughter from a plea bargain despite her earlier “intense” desire to consider such an option. The trial court sealed the transcript of the hearing.
Soon thereafter in open court, with Bradley then present, the court granted Dunlevy’s motion to withdraw and appointed Andrian to represent Bradley. The trial judge said:
[TJhis case is two years old. It’s way beyond the time that it should have been on the table for trial or settlement. I am concerned that this case would never get to trial with retained counsel. The only way to get the case to trial is through appointed counsel. I am convinced of that looking at the history of the case, the multiple attorneys who have gone through the case on a retained basis, the failure to properly pay for the investigation that was anticipated by the various lawyers working on the case.
A new trial date was set for October 26, 1998.
On October 14, 1998, Bradley sought yet another continuance. Five days later, she filed an ex parte motion under People v. Marsden, 2 Cal.3d 118, 84 Cal.Rptr. 156, 465 P.2d 44 (1970), expressing dissatisfaction with Andrian’s representation. Bradley alleged that Andrian inadequately communicated with her, ignored her ideas on how to prepare a defense, pursued an insanity defense without her authorization, and did not return phone calls from her father. The trial court found that the record did not establish inadequate representation and denied the motion.
At this time, Andrian noted a possible conflict of interest because Bradley had filed a complaint against him with the state *1106bar ■ and may have filed a civil lawsuit against Andrian’s firm. The trial court granted a continuance to resolve the matter. After the County agreed to indemnify Andrian, trial was reset for February 22, 1999.
On January 7, 1999, Bradley made another motion to replace counsel, this time to replace Andrian with a retained attorney, Jonathan Jordan. Bradley argued that her relationship with Andrian “ha[d] broken down to the point that any possible presentation of an adequate defense has been substantially interfered with.” Jordan asserted that he would be ready for trial and that he had no problems with the Bradley family.
At a hearing on the motion, Bradley responded “I don’t know” when the trial court inquired about any changes in her financial circumstances that would have allowed her to hire Jordan. Jordan offered to describe his financial arrangements. The trial court declined the offer, but invited him to make a record. The court then denied the motion, citing a “determinative danger of delay in substituting counsel.”
Jordan alternatively requested that he be allowed to associate with Andrian as co-counsel. The court denied the motion, citing concerns about liability issues and possible delay.
Bradley was tried and convicted on all charges.
II. Discussion
A. Right to be Present at March 4, 1998 Conference
I agree that Bradley’s due process rights were violated by her exclusion from the March 4, 1998 in-chambers conference. Any hearing that threatens a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to representation by retained counsel must be a fortiori a “critical stage” of the criminal proceeding, requiring the defendant’s presence. Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U.S. 730, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2658, 96 L.Ed.2d 631 (1987). However, the error is subject to review for harmlessness. See Campbell v. Rice, 408 F.3d 1166, 1172 (9th Cir.2005) (en banc).
The California Court of Appeal made a harmlessness determination: “Given the age of the case and the trial court’s own observations of a parade of retained attorneys passing through its court as counsel for Bradley, we cannot imagine anything that Bradley could have said that would have changed the court’s ruling.”
In support of this conclusion, the court found that Bradley had no personal knowledge of her father’s financial arrangements with Dunlevy, nor any direct knowledge about her father’s alleged interference with the case. Absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, we must presume the correctness of these findings. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1).
In her opening brief, Bradley now argues that, had she been present and allowed to speak at the conference, she would have presented contrary evidence that Dunlevy had been adequately paid, that her father had not hired an investigator to harass the prosecutor, and that her father had not interfered with the attorney-client relationship. This is nothing more than the argument of counsel— speculation unsupported by testimony, affidavit or declaration.1 Lacking any such evidence, Bradley cannot now meet her burden of rebutting the factual findings underlying the Court of Appeal’s harmlessness determination.
*1107B. Right to Substitute Jordan on January 7,1999
Under the Sixth Amendment, a defendant who does not require appointed counsel has the right to choose who will represent him. See Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 159, 108 S.Ct. 1692, 100 L.Ed.2d 140 (1988); see also United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 126 S.Ct. 2557, 2561, 165 L.Ed.2d 409 (2006). However, this right is not absolute. A trial court has wide latitude in balancing the right against the need to avoid conflicts of interest, the need to manage its calendar, and the need to ensure that the trial is conducted within ethical standards. Gonzalez-Lopez, 126 S.Ct. at 2565-66; see also United States v. Kelm, 827 F.2d 1319, 1322 (9th Cir.1987) (“[A] court must be wary against the ‘right of counsel’ being used as a ploy to gain time or effect delay.”).
Jordan was not hired by Bradley or being paid by her, but by her father. Such a dynamic had caused numerous delays in the past. Jordan attempted to assuage the court’s concerns, but as the California Court of Appeal found, “those assurances were not as definitive as Bradley portrays them.” For example, Jordan said that “[he saw] no reason” not to be ready for trial and “[didn’t] see that changing at this point ” (emphasis added). He similarly qualified his assurances about his financial relationship with the client, noting that it “[was] not a concern at this point” (emphasis added). The California Court of Appeal also noted Jordan’s limited preparation in the case at the time of the motion. Although he had met with Bradley’s family, a former investigator on the case, and Bradley herself, he had not had reviewed any of the twelve boxes of case materials, yet the trial was only a month away.
Faced with these concerns, the trial court denied the motion, finding that “in spite of the comments and [intentions] and current offers of counsel, there is significant and I do believe determinative danger of delay in substituting counsel at this point.” The California Court of Appeal held: “Given the magnitude of the accumulated materials, the paucity of Jordan’s preparations and the fact that the special circumstances allegation had not yet been dismissed, Jordan’s equivocal assurances of readiness were clearly inadequate.”
In light of the nearly three-year pretrial history of unrelenting problems with counsel and the continuances they caused, the state court’s ruling was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Wheat. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). As the California Court of Appeal found, given the complexity and severity of the criminal charges, the trial court’s skepticism of Jordan’s assurances that he would be ready for trial in a month was not without basis. The same goes for the trial court’s refusal to allow Jordan to associate as co-counsel with Andrian. The California Court of Appeal was not unreasonable in holding that Jordan’s proposed role as co-counsel was a recipe for conflict with existing counsel that could be expected to result in still more delay.
The trial court had a duty to protect Bradley’s right to counsel, but it also had a duty to bring this case to trial. In the face of challenging circumstances, the state court reasonably discharged both of these duties. The decision to do so was adequately supported by the record before us and the determination by the California Court of Appeal that any error in excluding Bradley from the chambers conference was harmless is not objectively unreasonable under AEDPA. I would affirm the district court.

. It is also significant to note that Bradley did not seek an evidentiary hearing in the California courts to substantiate these factual allegations. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2); see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 436-37, 120 S.Ct. 1479, 146 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000).