Court Opinion

ID: 9704101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:22:13.291321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:56.654549
License: Public Domain

Lesinski, C. J.
(dissenting). Defendant Leroy Kirkland was convicted by a jury of breaking and entering in the nighttime with intent to commit a felony, MCLA 750.110; MSA 28.305, and possession of burglary tools, MCLA 750.116; MSA 28.311. From the trial court’s denial of his motion for a new trial, defendant appeals as of right.
Defendant alleges that the trial court committed error by refusing his request to proceed to trial on the charges in propria persona. The record below *30reveals that defendant asked for permission to serve as his own attorney on the second day of trial in this matter, but before the jury had been selected. The only issue discussed during the first day of trial was defendant’s request for a change in his appointed counsel, which request the trial court denied.
On the morning of the second day set for trial, defendant initially asked for a continuance so that he might attempt to gather sufficient funds to hire his own attorney. After the trial court denied defendant’s entreaty, the following colloquy transpired:
"The Defendant: I would like to ask the court if I could represent myself because I don’t have confidence in my present attorney, my court-appointed attorney and I don’t trust him and I don’t see why I should go to trial with him.
"The Court: You didn’t tell me you didn’t trust him yesterday, you said you couldn’t communicate with him. Try another one.
"Well, no, we are going to trial. You let him sit there because you have got to have somebody to advise you. I am going to let him sit there. You can ask questions if you want.
"The Defendant: I can’t accept his advice when I don’t trust him.
"The Court: Sit down, please, please, please, we are going ahead with this trial. You didn’t tell me that yesterday. Every day you come up with a new tactic. You never told me that yesterday.
"The Defendant: I told you I couldn’t communicate with him, that’s the only way I can explain it.
"The Court: I know you said that yesterday but you never told me you didn’t trust him, you never told me that until now when we are ready to go to trial so we will go ahead with this trial. If you want to you can represent yourself; you can have the file and put your appearance in but I would let the lawyer sit there and I *31am going to pay him for his services, at least we will order the county to pay him for his services but I am going to leave him sitting there and make it known that you want to conduct your own case but I will leave the lawyer sitting there. * * *
"Mr. Gibbs [prosecutor]: Is it my understanding that this [is] in propria?
"The Court: No, he doesn’t know enough about it to try his own case, but he certainly can confer with his lawyer about the questions he wants asked.”
One charged with a crime in this state has a right to defend himself pursuant to Const 1963, art 1, § 13; and MCLA 763.1; MSA 28.854. After trial has begun, however, the right of defendant to conduct his own defense is not absolute but qualified. The Michigan Supreme Court recognized in People v Henley, 382 Mich 143, 148 (1969), that to allow a defendant to dismiss his attorney and proceed in propria persona, once trial was well under way, "would surely invite into regular practice the obstruction of criminal justice by the calculated manufacture of new hindrances and novel specifications of error”. As authority, the Court relied on United States v Bentvena, 319 F2d 916 (CA 2, 1963), which distinguished between the absolute right to proceed without an attorney and conduct one’s own defense, and the qualiñed right to discharge counsel once trial had begun.
In People v Payne, 27 Mich App 133 (1970), this Court was confronted with a factual situation similar to the instant case. Defendant, in Payne, had requested at the beginning of the trial that his court-appointed attorney be dismissed, and that he be allowed to conduct his own defense. The jury, as in this case, had not yet been selected.
The Payne holding relied on United States ex rel Maldonado v Denno, 348 F2d 12 (CA 2, 1965), cert den 384 US 1007; 86 S Ct 1950; 16 L Ed 2d *321020 (1966), in affirming defendant’s conviction, because defendant did not unequivocally state that he wanted to defend himself. With this exception, however, the Maldonado opinion stated, as the Payne Court emphasized, that defendant’s right remained unqualiñed prior to the selection of the jury. As Judge Waterman pointed out in Maldonado, supra, p 16, there is "no danger of disrupting proceedings already in progress” if defendant makes an unequivocal request to defend himself before the jury has been chosen.
It is the opinion of this writer that Payne dictates reversal in this case. The jury had not yet been selected. Defendant’s request to represent himself was unequivocal.1 Further, our examina*33tion of the record reveals that his defense was conducted entirely by court-appointed counsel, consistent with the trial court’s statement to the prosecutor before the commencement of the voir dire.
However, the majority in this case ignores the language from Bentvena that was quoted by our Supreme Court in Henley. Under the majority holding, defendant’s right to represent himself, when exercised before trial has begun, is no longer absolute "when it conflicts with the interest of the public in ensuring a fair trial”. That interest, in the majority’s view, apparently takes precedence over the right of the accused to defend himself at trial, whenever the trial court concludes that "defendant would be unable to fairly represent himself’, in light of the complexity of the case.2 Moreo-ver, the decision relies on the legal acumen exhibited by defendant’s appointed counsel at trial as support for the proposition that defendant would be unable to fairly represent himself, pointing out that defendant, being unskilled in the law, could not have taken advantage of every opportunity to protect his interests by way of motion, objection, and examination.
Yet, it is difficult to conceive of a situation when *34defendant would be more skilled than his appointed counsel in the intricacies of courtroom procedure. Under this test, the defendant’s absolute right to represent himself becomes almost no right at all. This result obtains, despite the clear constitutional guaranty that a "suitor in any court of this state has the right to prosecute or defend his suit, either in his own proper person or by an attorney”. Const 1963, art 1, § 13.
The United States Supreme Court, addressing this problem in Adams v United States ex rel McCann, 317 US 269, 279; 63 S Ct 236, 241-242; 87 L Ed 268, 274-275 (1942), stated:
"The right to assistance of counsel and the correlative right to dispense with a lawyer’s help are not legal formalisms. They rest on considerations that go to the substance of an accused’s position before the law. The public conscience must be satisfied that fairness dominates the administration of justice. * * * Essential fairness is lacking if an accused cannot put his case effectively in court. But the Constitution does not force a lawyer upon a defendant He may waive his constitutional right to assistance of counsel if he knows what he is doing and his choice is made with eyes open.”3 (Emphasis supplied.)
Mr. Justice Frankfurter, writing for the Court, reached this conclusion, despite the lack of any specific provision in the United States Constitution guaranteeing defendant the right to represent himself.4
*35One argument which is implicit in the majority’s opinion in the instant case is that defendant was not prejudiced by the trial court’s refusal to allow him to represent himself. My colleagues point to "the overwhelming evidence against the defendant”, and the excellent work performed by his appointed counsel at trial. Yet, I remind them that a defendant is not required to show prejudice, when his constitutional rights have been violated. See United States v Plattner, 330 F2d 271 (CA 2, 1964).
I am not unmindful of the policy considerations which underlie the American Bar Association’s tentative draft, cited by my brethren, on the standards to be employed in determining whether defendant should be allowed to proceed without counsel. It is not disputed that the trial court’s task is a difficult one when deciding if defendant’s waiver of counsel is an intelligent and knowing one.5 Von Moltke v Gillies, 332 US 708; 68 S Ct 316; 92 L Ed 309 (1948) (opinion of Black, J.); Johnson v Zerbst, 304 US 458; 58 S Ct 1019; 82 L Ed 1461 (1938). See, also, American Bar Association Standards Relating to Providing Defense Services, § 7.2 (Approved Draft, 1968). To state that the task is difficult in nature is not sufficient justification, however, to vitiate by judicial fiat a defendant’s absolute right to proceed without an attorney and conduct his own defense, as guaranteed by the Michigan Constitution.
Additionally, there are policy reasons in support of our constitutional provision, as it now reads. As *36was stated by the Court in United States ex rel Maldonado, supra, p 15, defendant:
" '[M]ust have the means of presenting his best defense,’ and to this end he 'must have complete confidence in his counsel.’ Without such confidence a defendant may be better off representing himself. Moreover, even in cases where the accused is harming himself by insisting on conducting his own defense, respect for individual autonomy requires that he be allowed to go to jail under his own banner if he so desires and if he makes the choice 'with eyes open.’ ”
The California Court of Appeal, in People v Addison, 256 Cal App 2d 18, 24; 63 Cal Rptr 626, 629 (1967), pointed out that it was possible for a defendant to make an intelligent waiver of his right to counsel without a knowledge of legal procedures on his part, stating that:
"If the defendant wants to venture into the unknown, he must be allowed to do so, if he is aware of the dangers that lurk therein. He need not demonstrate that he can meet them.”
See, also, E. Wise, 1969 Annual Survey of Michigan Law: Criminal Law and Evidence, 16 Wayne L Rev 589, 596-597 (1970); Note, The Right of an Accused to Proceed Without Counsel, 49 Minn L Rev 1133, 1152-1153 (1965).
Accordingly, the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion for a new trial should be reversed.

 The majority opinion states that defendant "did not unequivocally request that he be permitted to conduct his own defense”, and cites as authority the case of People v Fred Smith, 22 Mich App 22 (1970). Smith is not on point. In Smith, defendant, as in the instant case, requested a change of appointed counsel prior to the selection of the jury. However, the Smith defendant did not then request that he be allowed to conduct his own defense, as did this defendant. In this case, following a long exchange between defendant and the trial court concerning his request to represent himself, in which the trial court attempted to dissuade defendant from serving as his own counsel, the trial court informed the prosecutor that defendant would not be allowed to proceed to trial on the charges in propria persona, because he "doesn’t know enough about it.”
In United States ex rel Maldonado v Denno, 348 F2d 12 (CA 2, 1965), cert den 384 US 1007 (1966), also cited by the majority, the Court ruled that defendant Maldonado had made an unequivocal request to represent himself, that the trial court had erroneously denied the request, and that defendant’s conviction must be reversed as a result thereof. After Maldonado had first asked that he be assigned different appointed counsel, and the trial court had rejected that petition, the following exchange occurred:
"Defendant Maldonado: Your Honor, if I feel that the case must go on, I want to be able to act as my own attorney. Would you give me that permission, sir?
"The Court: No, no. You sit down, mister. You have got a lawyer, a good lawyer, and he is going to try your case. Now sit down.” Maldonado, supra, p 15.
In the case at hand, defendant’s request was as unequivocal as Maldonado’s, as indicated by the trial record:
"The Defendant: I would like to ask the court if I could represent *33myself because I don’t have confidence in my present attorney, my court-appointed attorney and I don’t trust him and I don’t see why I should go to trial with him.”
Defendant’s request was unequivocal on authority of Maldonado, notwithstanding the majority’s contention on this point.

 The majority appears to arrive at the conclusion that this case was complex, because "of the overwhelming evidence against the defendant”. However, as was stated by the California Court of Appeal in People v Addison, 256 Cal App 2d 18, 24; 63 Cal Rptr 626, 629, note 3 (1967):
"The truth of the matter is that there are many cases so utterly hopeless from the defendant’s point of view that—at least on the question of guilt or innocence—there is nothing the most competent attorney can do for him. If he decides that his only chance is the 'hope that the jury will be sympathetic toward a layman who pits himself against the Goliath of the state * * * ,’ whence comes the right of the court to deprive him of his choice?”

 Cf. Carter v Illinois, 329 US 173, 174; 67 S Ct 216, 218; 91 L Ed 172, 174 (1946), where the Court stated that "[n]either the historic conception of Due Process nor the vitality it derives from progressive standards of justice denies a person the right to defend himself or to confess guilt”.

 This is not to say that the right of an accused person to defend himself is devoid of a Federal constitutional base. See the analysis of Judge Medina in United States v Plattner, 330 F2d 271, 273-275 (CA 2, 1964), holding that the right to defend pro se is one arising out of the United States Constitution.

 "When a trial court is confronted with a defendant who asserts his desire to waive counsel, it must steer carefully between the Scylla of denying the defendant’s substantial right to determine his own fate and the Charybdis of violating the constitutional right to counsel of a person who does not validly waive this right.” Note, The Right of an Accused to Proceed Without Counsel, 49 Minn L Rev 1133, 1141 (1965).