Originally Posted - June 27, 2006

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The Supreme Court has reaffirmed a ruling first made in the landmark case of Powell v. Alabama in 1932 in which provides that a defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to the counsel of their choice in criminal cases.

The 5-4 ruling came in the case United States v. Gonzelez-Lopez. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, saying that the right to counsel of choice was the fundamental "root meaning" of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel and when that right is violated, the defendant's conviction must be reversed regardless of if the violation resulted in an unfair trial.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-352.ZS.html

In the case, a Missouri federal trial judge had refused to allow Joseph Low of Newport Beach, CA., to represent Cuauhtomec Gonzalez-Lopez on federal drug trafficking charges after the defendant had hired him on the grounds that Low had violated a professional conduct rule. The judge claimed that Low had improperly passed notes to a local attorney in the case. Then, with one exception, the judge prevented the defendant from consulting with Low throughout the trial. Because Low was barred, the defendant hired an attorney who had never tried a criminal case The jury found Gonzalez-Lopez guilty.

The Eighth Circuit reversed, holding that the District court erred in interpreting the disciplinary rule, that the court's refusal to admit Low therefore violated defendant's Sixth Amendment right to paid counsel of his choosing and that the violation was not subject to harmless error review.

The Supreme Court concurred, finding that the trial court's erroneous deprivation of the defendant's choice of counsel entitles him to reversal of his conviction.

"Deprivation of the right is 'complete' when the defendant is erroneously prevented from being represented by the lawyer he wants, regardless of the quality of the representation he received," Scalia wrote.

The Court rejected 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, 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.

The ruling doesn't extend to defendants represented by assigned counsel. Scalia said that the ruling will not restrict the authority to trial judges to set criteria for lawyers to argue before them. 6-27-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette