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

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

Third, a self-representation right at trial will not "affirm the dignity" of a defendant who lacks the mental capacity to conduct his defense without the assistance of counsel, see McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U.S. 168, and may undercut the most basic of the Constitution's criminal law objectives, providing a fair trial.

The trial judge -- particularly one such as the judge in this case, who presided over one of Edwards' competency hearings and his two trials -- will often prove best able to make more fine-tuned mental capacity decisions, tailored to the particular defendant's individualized circumstances.

Indiana's proposed standard, which would deny a criminal defendant the right to represent himself at trial if he cannot communicate coherently with the court or a jury, was rejected because the Court was uncertain as to how that standard would work in practice.

The Court also declined Indiana's request to overrule Faretta because the instant opinion may well remedy the unfair trial concerns previously leveled against that case.

Criminal Procedure

Sentencing

BOTTOM LINE: Absent a Government appeal or cross-appeal, the 8th Circuit could not, on its own initiative, order an increase in criminal defendant's sentence.

CASE: Greenlaw v. United States, No. 07-330 (decided June 23, 2008) (Justices Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter & Thomas) (Justice Breyer, concurring) (Justices Stevens & Alito, dissenting).

FACTS: Petitioner Greenlaw was convicted of seven drug and firearms charges and was sentenced to imprisonment for 442 months.

In calculating this sentence, the district court made an error. Overlooking the Court's controlling decision in Deal v. United States, 508 U.S. 129, interpreting 18 U.S.C. [section]924(c)(1)(C)(i), and over the Government's objection, the district court imposed a 10-year sentence on a count that carried a 25-year mandatory minimum term.

Greenlaw appealed urging, inter alia, that the appropriate sentence for all his convictions was 15 years. The Government neither appealed nor cross-appealed.

The 8th Circuit found no merit in any of Greenlaw's arguments, but went on to consider whether his sentence was too low. The court acknowledged that the Government, while it had objected to the trial court's error at sentencing, had elected not to seek alteration of Greenlaw's sentence on appeal. Nonetheless, relying on the "plain- error rule" stated in FRCP 52(b), the Court of Appeals ordered the district court to enlarge Greenlaw's sentence by 15 years, yielding a total prison term of 662 months.

The Supreme Court reversed and remanded.

LAW: In both civil and criminal cases, in the first instance and on appeal, courts follow the principle of party presentation, i.e., the parties frame the issues for decision and the courts generally serve as neutral arbiters of matters the parties present.

To the extent courts have approved departures from the party presentation principle in criminal cases, the justification has usually been to protect a pro se litigant's rights. See Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375.