U.S. Supreme Court Opinions: July 7, 2008

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jul 7, 2008

The County relied on United States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, in arguing that in considering the initial appearance's significance, the Court must ignore prejudice to a defendant's pretrial liberty, it being the concern, not of the right to counsel, but of the speedy- trial right and the Fourth Amendment. But the County's suggestion that Fifth Amendment protections at the early stage obviated attachment of the Sixth Amendment right at initial appearance was refuted by Jackson, 475 U.S., at 629, n. 3. And since the Court was not asked to extend the right to counsel to a point earlier than formal judicial proceedings (as in Gouveia), but to defer it to those proceedings in which a prosecutor is involved, Gouveia did not speak to the question at issue.

The County's third tack got it no further. Stipulating that the properly formulated test was whether the State had objectively committed itself to prosecute, the County said that prosecutorial involvement is but one form of evidence of such commitment and that others include (1) the filing of formal charges or the holding of an adversarial preliminary hearing to determine probable cause to file such charges, and (2) a court appearance following arrest on an indictment.

Either version ran up against Brewer and Jackson: an initial appearance following a charge signifies a sufficient commitment to prosecute regardless of a prosecutor's participation, indictment, information, or what the County calls a "formal" complaint.

The County's assertions that Brewer and Jackson were "vague" and thus of limited, if any, precedential value were wrong. Although the Court in those cases saw no need for lengthy disquisitions on the initial appearance's significance, that was because it found the attachment issue an easy one. See, e.g., Brewer, supra, at 399.

Criminal Procedure

Right to self-representation

BOTTOM LINE: The Constitution does not forbid states from insisting upon representation by counsel for those competent enough to stand trial but who suffer from severe mental illness to the point where they are not competent to conduct trial proceedings by themselves.

CASE: Indiana v. Edwards, No. 07-208 (decided June 19, 2008) (Justices Roberts, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, BREYER & Alito) (Justices Scalia & Thomas, dissenting).

FACTS: After Indiana charged respondent Edwards with attempted murder and other crimes for a shooting during his attempt to steal a pair of shoes, his mental condition became the subject of three competency proceedings and two self-representation requests, mostly before the same trial judge.

Referring to the lengthy record of psychiatric reports, the trial court noted that Edwards suffered from schizophrenia and concluded that, although it appeared he was competent to stand trial, he was not competent to defend himself at trial. The court therefore denied Edwards' self-representation request.

He was represented by appointed counsel at trial and convicted on two counts.

Indiana's intermediate appellate court ordered a new trial, agreeing with Edwards that the trial court's refusal to permit him to represent himself deprived him of his constitutional right of self-representation under the 6th Amendment and Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806.