Posted on 06/26/2006 1:23:37 PM PDT by new yorker 77
Defendants are automatically entitled to new trials if their choices of attorneys are wrongly blocked by judges, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
By a 5-4 vote, justices said Cuauhtemoc Gonzalez-Lopez has a constitutional right to the attorney of his choice under the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of assistance of counsel.
"It commands, not that a trial be fair, but that a particular guarantee of fairness be provided — to wit, that the accused be defended by the counsel he believes to be the best," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority.
In his first written dissent, Justice Samuel Alito accused Scalia of making "a subtle but important mistake" in interpreting the constitutional guarantee. Alito said "the focus of the right is the quality of the representation ... not the identity of the attorney who provides the representation."
But Scalia insisted the identity of defense counsel does matter. "Different attorneys will pursue different strategies," he wrote. "And the choice of attorney will affect whether and on what terms the defendant cooperates with the prosecution, plea bargains, or decides instead to go to trial."
Alito, a former appellate judge, warned that the majority's decision will force new trials for defendants who have not shown they were harmed by the representation of attorneys who were their second choices.
In federal courts, defendants must wait until they are convicted before they can appeal a judge's decision on the choice of an attorney. That means judges cannot correct the error before trial and must now retry cases, Alito said.
Scalia was joined by the court's more liberal members, Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Alito had the support of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
After Gonzalez-Lopez was accused in Missouri with conspiring to distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana, his family hired attorney John Fahle. But Gonzalez-Lopez insisted on hiring Joseph Low, a California attorney who flew to Missouri to represent the defendant.
At first, Fahle and Low cooperated. But their relationship quickly deteriorated and the two lawyers began fighting over representing Gonzalez-Lopez.
The trial judge refused to allow Low to represent Gonzalez-Lopez, ruling that Low had violated court rules by communicating with the defendant against the wishes of his attorney. By then, Fahle had bowed out of the case and another attorney was hired to represent Gonzalez-Lopez.
Eventually, Gonzalez-Lopez was convicted.
Scalia said there are limits to defendants' choices of attorneys. He said defendants cannot insist on choosing their attorneys if counsel is appointed and paid for by the court. Nor can defendants insist on counsel who are not members of the bar, he wrote.
The case is United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 05-352.
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FYI
(do I really need a sarcasm tag for this one)
Man...so far Alito isn't a dissapointment. I hope he stays away from the dinner parties.
Republicans are divided on the issue. It threatens to tear the party asudner!
He and Roberts have been fantastic, and they don't strike me as the dinner party types, especially Alito.
Respondent Cuauhtemoc Gonzalez-Lopez was charged with conspiring to distribute marijuana in the Eastern District of Missouri. Upon his arrest, his family secured a lawyer for him (Mr. John Fahle), whom he had never met. Fahle represented Gonzalez-Lopez at an arraignment hearing, but shortly thereafter, Gonzalez-Lopez heard about a California lawyer named Joseph Low, who had recently secured a favorable deal for another defendant in a similar case before the same judge. Gonzalez-Lopez contacted Low and ultimately hired him. Shortly thereafter, Gonzalez-Lopez asked Fahle to withdraw from the case, leaving Low as his sole attorney.
Before the trial, Low applied for formal admission pro hac vice four times and applied for general admission to the Missouri bar, but the trial court denied his motions and tabled his application. The court based its ruling on Low’s alleged violation of a local rule, which, according to the trial court’s interpretation, prohibited lawyers from talking to represented parties without their current lawyer’s permission. On this basis, Low was denied the ability to represent Gonzalez-Lopez at trial.
Low had previously brought in another attorney, Karl Dickhaus, to act as local counsel while his applications for admission were pending. But after Low was denied admission, Dickhaus went on to represent Gonzalez-Lopez at trial in what was Dickhaus’s first federal criminal case. At trial, Low was not permitted to sit next to Gonzalez-Lopez or advise Dickhaus in any way; he was seated in the audience, with a U.S. Marshal placed between him and his client. He was denied the ability to consult with Gonzalez-Lopez until the last day of his trial.
I'll have to read the decision in order to see if I agree with a reporter's charactization of it, but my initial reaction is that this is BS, and Scalia must be losing it.
The only hurdle should be whether one gets adequate legal representation, not who the particular attorney is.
If I have a constitutional right to Clarence Darrow as my attorney, and he happens to be DEAD, that is a problem.
I have to agree, Scalia really blew this one. He's creating all kinds of problems for courts. Suppose that Bruce Cutler, the mob attorney, can't be in court for a particular client because he's already scheduled a trial with a higher-paying client. Is the criminal court judge violating the defendant's right if he refuses to adjourn his trial so Bruce can be there? There's so many potential loopholes that Nino will regret this one. I'll go on record right now that he'll actually see the error of his decision and acknowledge it in a future opinion.
The lawyer was alive, the defendant wanted to hire him, he had the money to hire him, the lawyer was willing and available, and the judge kept him out of the trial for no good reason. Scalia was right.
Somewhere in America, there's the worst lawyer in America.
Maybe he should have had the attorney he wanted. But that's no reason to throw out the conviction. Facts are still facts.
Not if the attorney isn't a member of the state bar where the trial is. Which was apparently the case here.
No good reason?
As I understand it the state bar wouldn't allow the lawyer to practice in their state.
Hardly a barrier. That's what pro hac vice motions are for.
The judge ordered him not to even talk to the local lawyer.
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