Court Opinion

ID: 9782786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:16:07.903837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:11.990487
License: Public Domain

Smith, J.
(concurring). Here, as in People v Gillian (8 NY3d 85 [2006]), the majority finds equivocation where I cannot. Appellant did answer, “If I have to,” to the trial court’s question: “You’re ready to proceed on your own?” But when he said that, it was clear, beyond doubt, that he did have to unless he was to *388continue with his court-appointed lawyer; and it was equally clear that he found that lawyer unacceptable. The whole point of the right of self-representation recognized in Faretta v California (422 US 806 [1975]) is that a defendant in a criminal case is entitled to choose, however foolishly and self-destructively, to represent himself rather than to take a lawyer forced on him by the state. Thus if appellant here had a Faretta right, his invocation of it was not equivocal.
The trial court’s response to appellant’s application was: “You can’t proceed on your own. You don’t know the law.” Surely no one would argue — and the majority here does not suggest — that this would be an appropriate response to a defendant’s request to go pro se in a criminal case. Criminal defendants, no matter how little law they know, are entitled to blunder through on their own if they want to, so long as they are competent to stand trial (Godinez v Moran, 509 US 389 [1993]).
I therefore think that this case requires us to reach the question the majority avoids deciding: Does the right protected by Farreta and Godinez apply in a Family Court proceeding for the termination of parental rights? I would answer that question no. The difference between a criminal case and a case like this is glaring. A criminal defendant who chooses to go without a lawyer will ordinarily harm no one but himself, but a parent who makes that choice in a parental rights proceeding can harm his children. Weighty as appellant’s own interest in the outcome of this proceeding is, the interests of his two daughters are no less so. It was essential for their protection that both sides of the case be competently presented; otherwise there would be an unacceptable danger that parental rights would be terminated when they should not be.
Thus I conclude that the Family Court judge in this case was entirely right — just as right as a criminal court judge similarly situated would have been wrong — to tell appellant: “You can’t proceed on your own. You don’t know the law.” For that reason, I concur in the result reached by the majority.
Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Read and Pigott concur with Judge Jones; Judge Smith concurs in result in a separate opinion.
Order affirmed, without costs.