We're saying the same thing, essentially. I don't agree with the majority because it translates the 6th Amendment from guaranteeing the assistance of counsel into guaranteeing the choice of counsel.
UNITED STATES v. GONZALEZ-LOPEZ simply reiterates a position held by the Court for over 100 years - that 6th Amendment protections necessarily include the right to choose your own attorney (again, as long as you're paying).
Cf. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 53 (1932) (“It is hardly necessary to say that, the right to counsel being conceded, a defendant should be afforded a fair opportunity to secure counsel of his own choice”). The Government here agrees, as it has previously, that “the Sixth Amendment guarantees the defendant the right to be represented by an otherwise qualified attorney whom that defendant can afford to hire, or who is willing to represent the defendant even though he is without funds.” Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered v. United States, 491 U. S. 617, 624–625 (1989). To be sure, the right to counsel of choice “is circumscribed in several important respects.” Wheat, supra, at 159. But the Government does not dispute the Eighth Circuit’s conclusion in this case that the District Court erroneously deprived respondent of his counsel of choice.
How could it be otherwise?
The right of choice isn't limitless, nor has it ever been held to be:
As the dissent too discusses, post, at 3, the right to counsel of choice does not extend to defendants who require counsel to be appointed for them. See Wheat, 486 U. S., at 159; Caplin & Drysdale, 491 U. S., at 624, 626. Nor may a defendant insist on representation by a person who is not a member of the bar, or demand that a court honor his waiver of conflict-free representation. See Wheat, 486 U. S., at 159–160. We have recognized a trial court’s wide latitude in balancing the right to counsel of choice against the needs of fairness, id., at 163–164, and against the demands of its calendar, Morris v. Slappy, 461 U. S. 1, 11–12 (1983). The court has, moreover, an “independent interest in ensuring that criminal trials are conducted within the ethical standards of the profession and that legal proceedings appear fair to all who observe them.” Wheat, supra, at 160. None of these limitations on the right to choose one’s counsel is relevant here. This is not a case about a court’s power to enforce rules or adhere to practices that determine which attorneys may appear before it, or to make scheduling and other decisions that effectively exclude a defendant’s first choice of counsel.
The key point in UNITED STATES v. GONZALEZ-LOPEZ is that the long-held right of choice inherent in the 6th Amendment is not subject to harmless-error review. As Scalia wrote:
In sum, the right at stake [R4F note - "at stake", as opposed to 'in question'] here is the right to counsel of choice, not the right to a fair trial; and that right was violated because the deprivation of counsel was erroneous. No additional showing of prejudice is required to make the violation “complete.”2,...
and...
(a) In light of the Government’s concession of erroneous deprivation, the trial court’s error violated respondent’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel of choice. The Court rejects the Government’s contention that the violation is not “complete” unless the defendant can show that substitute counsel was ineffective within the meaning of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 691–696—i.e., that his performance was deficient and the defendant was prejudiced by it—or the defendant can demonstrate that substitute counsel’s performance, while not deficient, was not as good as what his counsel of choice would have provided, creating a “reasonable probability that. . . the result . . . would have been different,” id., at 694.
Kryptonite spaketh profoundly thusly:
I don't agree with the majority because it translates the 6th Amendment from guaranteeing the assistance of counsel into guaranteeing the choice of counsel.