Court Opinion

ID: 9649625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:04:01.788196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:13.224226
License: Public Domain

FLANDERS, J.,
dissenting.
Because I believe that the trial justice violated the defendant’s federal constitutional right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, I respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ opinion. Specifically, I would hold that the trial justice twice violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel: (1) when he prevented the defendant’s counsel from conducting a direct examination of the defendant after granting the defendant’s request to allow him to reopen his case so that he could testify; and (2) when he asked the defendant whether he wanted to testify in front of the jury, and then refused to allow him to do so when the defendant responded that he did not have a lawyer. Because these violations of the defendant’s constitutional right to counsel at trial constituted reversible errors, I would vacate the defendant’s conviction and remand this case for a new trial.
The United States Supreme Court has stated that “the assistance of counsel is among those ‘constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error.’ ” Holloway v. Arkansas, 436 U.S. 475, 489, 98 S.Ct. 1173, 1181, 55 L.Ed.2d 426, 437 (1978) (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827-28, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710 (1967)). The Court has further refined this- statement in a line of *1069cases holding that even a limited deprivation of the defendant’s right to counsel — if it occurs with respect to a critical stage of the trial proceedings — requires reversal without inquiry into whether any actual prejudice resulted from the deprivation. Perry v. Leeke, 488 U.S. 272, 278-80, 109 S.Ct. 594, 599-600, 102 L.Ed.2d 624, 632-33 (1989) (citing Geders v. United States, 425 U.S. 80, 96 S.Ct. 1330, 47 L.Ed.2d 592 (1976)).
Thus, although the deprivation of counsel in this case was limited to defendant’s forfeiting the assistance of counsel when the court allowed him to present his testimony to the jury — after the court’s discretionary granting of defendant’s motion to reopen his case — I am of the opinion that it nonetheless constituted a violation of defendant’s constitutional right to the assistance of counsel at trial. Although the forfeiture of defendant’s right to counsel at his trial only pertained to a limited portion of that trial, the presentation of the accused’s own testimony was a critical portion of the trial; thus, it still amounted to a “structural” error of the kind that the United States Supreme Court condemned in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963) (holding that a Florida court violated a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel by completely denying him counsel). Despite the United States Supreme Court’s emphasis on the total deprivation of the assistance, of counsel in Gideon, the court-imposed deprivation of counsel in this case occurred during a critical stage of the trial when defendant sought to present his own testimony to the jury. Because of the importance of this deprivation to the structural fairness of the trial, I believe that the United States Constitution requires automatic reversal when, as here, a trial court has deprived one or more defendants of the opportunity to have their attorney question them during the presentation of the defendant’s testimony through a direct examination. The right to counsel is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Our high Court’s interpretations of this right have stated that a criminal defendant is entitled to legal representation at all critical stages of criminal proceedings. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 224-25, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1931, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, 1156 (1967).8
In Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U.S. 570, 596, 81 S.Ct. 756, 770, 5 L.Ed.2d 783, 798-99 (1961), the United States Supreme Court struck down a Georgia statute that limited an accused’s testimony at trial to an unsworn statement. The Court held that such a rule denied the defendant his right to have counsel question him in order to elicit his testimony. The Supreme Court emphasized that a defendant who has been instructed to make a statement to the jury without the aid of counsel “has been set adrift in an uncharted sea with nothing to guide him, with the result that his statement in most cases does him no good or is positively hurtful.” Id. at 593, 81 S.Ct. at 769, 5 L.Ed.2d at 797 (quoting 7 Ga.B.J. 432, 433 (1945)). The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to “deny appellant the right to have his counsel question him to elicit his statement * * * [f]or otherwise, * * * ‘the right to be heard by counsel would be of little worth.’ ” Id. at 596, 81 S.Ct. at 770, 5 L.Ed.2d at 798-99 (quoting Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U.S. 3, 10, 75 S.Ct. 1, 5, 99 L.Ed. 4, 10 (1954)).
*1070Like Ferguson, the case at bar calls upon us to review the propriety of a governmental restriction on a defendant’s right to have his counsel conduct a direct examination of him when presenting his proposed testimony to the fact-finder. Although the Court in Ferguson addressed a statutory restriction on defendant’s ability to testify at trial, the restriction imposed here by the trial justice constituted no less an infringement upon defendant’s constitutional rights, and was no less harmful to those rights merely because its scope was limited to defendant’s request to testify after the court had granted defendant’s motion to reopen his case. See United States ex rel. Wilcox v. Johnson, 555 F.2d 115, 120-21 (3d Cir.1977) (holding that when a trial judge ruled that the defendant would have to represent himself for the remainder of the trial if he insisted on testifying, the trial judge denied the defendant his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel, and that the ruling “worked as a lever to pry from [the defendant] his statutory right to testify”). Here, I conclude, the trial justice essentially precluded defendant from exercising his constitutional right to testify with the assistance of counsel in his own defense, a right that exists despite the advice of defendant’s own counsel that it was not in his best interests to testify. I believe that such a denial, whether imposed by statute or by judicial decree, constitutes reversible error.
Moreover, the trial justice further exacerbated his initial constitutional error when, in front of the jury — after allowing defendant to testify but only without his counsel’s assistance — he asked defendant “Mr. Feole, do you wish to take the stand?” When defendant truthfully replied that, “I don’t have a lawyer,” the trial justice peremptorily cut him off by misconstruing his response as a negative answer to the question that the court had posed to him, instantly transforming defendant’s comment into the negative response that the trial justice chose to hear: “[t]he answer is no.” Thus, after setting defendant “ ‘adrift in an uncharted sea with nothing to guide him,’ ” Ferguson, 365 U.S. at 593, 81 S.Ct. at 769, 5 L.Ed.2d at 797, the trial justice proceeded to sink the small, rudderless lifeboat from which he had forced defendant to testify, thereby torpedoing what was left of defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
The trial justice then ordered the attorneys to proceed with closing arguments without allowing defendant to testify. Despite the fact that the trial justice ventured a curative instruction, admonishing the jurors that “you, the members of the jury may not and must not draw any inference of guilt of the defendant” because of his failure to testify, the trial justice’s questioning of defendant in front of the jury about this subject still constituted error, as did the court’s misconstruction of the defendant’s truthful observation that he did not have a lawyer to assist him if he wished “to take the stand.” Also, the trial justice’s impermissible query, in the presence of the jury, about whether defendant wanted to testify might have led the jurors to speculate that defendant was attempting to hide something from the jury, especially when the judge erroneously told the jurors that defendant had answered that he did not wish to take the stand. Thus, the trial justice compounded his initial error of requiring defendant to testify without counsel by refusing to allow him to testify at all, suggesting, in front of the jury, that he did not wish to take the stand even though defendant’s response did not so indicate.
Even though denying the defendant’s motion to reopen was within the trial justice’s discretion, it was inappropriate for him to grant that motion by imposing the *1071unconstitutional condition that defendant’s attorney could not question him during the presentation of his own testimony. Although it is true, as we have consistently held, that “[i]t is within the sound discretion of the trial justice to determine whether to grant a motion to reopen,” State v. Austin, 642 A.2d 673, 679 (R.I.1994), the granting of such a motion with unconstitutional conditions does not fall within the realm of a trial justice’s discretion.
Finally, I do not believe that the circumstances of this case justified the court in depriving defendant of his right to counsel when he advised the court of his desire to testify. The defendant did not dispute that he waived his right to testify during the initial presentation of his case and that his lawyer had rested the defense’s case with his knowledge and consent. Although his counsel had informed the court that he was unprepared to question him before the trial justice granted the motion to reopen, I am of the opinion that once the court granted the motion to reopen, the trial justice should not have precluded defendant from exercising his right to have his counsel question him — whether his counsel was prepared to do so or not. Significantly, defendant’s lawyer used the past tense when he notified the court that he “was unprepared” to conduct defendant’s direct examination when he came to court that day. But he did not represent that he was unwilling or unable to do so when he later moved the court to allow defendant to testify, nor did counsel request the court to allow defendant to testify without his assistance. In any event, a brief continuance also may have helped to give the lawyer and his client whatever additional time, if any, they needed to prepare themselves for this important presentation. As the United States Supreme Court has stated, “[tjhere is no justification today for a rule that denies an accused the opportunity to offer his own testimony.” Rock v. Arkansas, 488 U.S. 44, 52, 107 S.Ct. 2704, 2709, 97 L.Ed.2d 37, 46 (1987). Unfortunately, however, the trial justice did just that by the erroneous way in which he handled this situation.
I also do not agree that defendant waived his right to have his attorney question him when he responded “no, no * * * ” to the trial justice’s previous suggestion that his attorney had to question him if he wished to testify. A review of the defendant’s entire garbled response, using mostly broken English, suggests that he apparently wanted his lawyer to question a state-police witness. Although the trial justice was entitled to prevent defendant from engaging in that frolic and detour, I cannot conclude from the defendant’s largely unintelligible and unresponsive statement that he knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel.9
*1072For the forgoing reasons I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion. I would have held that the trial justice violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Because this error could not have been harmless, it required this Court to vacate the defendant’s conviction and to remand this case for a new trial. I also do not believe that the defendant or his lawyer waived these errors by failing to object because, after all, the court had deprived him of the assistance of his counsel when it required him to testify without the help of his lawyer. Thus, I do not believe that we can fault the defendant for failing to object to same, after the trial court has deprived the defendant of his lawyer in this respect. This is especially so when, as here, his lawyer has advised the court that he vehemently disagreed with his client’s decision to testify. I would reverse, vacate the conviction, and remand for a new trial.

. The right to counsel is also protected by article 1, section 10, of the Rhode Island Constitution, which incorporates language similar to that of the Sixth Amendment. It provides in relevant part, "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, accused persons shall enjoy the right * * * to have the assistance of counsel in their defense.” But because defendant did not raise a state constitutional argument, I do not base my dissent on the state constitution.

. The exchange was as follows:
“The Court: I have got to bring this thing to a head one way or the other. Do you wish to testify or don’t you?
"The Defendant: Yes, I will.
"The Court: He has to ask you questions.
"The Defendant: No, no, I want be finished the testimony question, the testimony, I can't say to the State Police this gentleman is the State Police. I often saw the second time I saw this gentleman. I want him to question him, things that’s supposed to be questioned. I told him he’s got to ask him, okay. This is the State Police I want him to question where I was when the civilian on me, they been on me, I was in the casino, how was I to have of this person killed. How could I take him to Mr. Rocchio’s family’s houses. This gentleman, he was a police officer surveilling me. Why you stopping me because it was never true.
"The Court: Do you want to testify in front of a jury?
"The Defendant: I’m going to start right from the beginning through the end. This case start in '92.
"The Court: Mr. Connors, are you going to make a motion on behalf of your client? I *1072know he’s made it abundantly clear he wants to take the stand. I know probably it’s not fair to you.
“The Defendant: A lot of thing is not fair. I’m in there for three years for something I never done.” (Emphasis added.)