UNWISE DECISION TO REPRESENT HIMSELF DOES NOT ENTITLE DEFENDANT TO NEW TRIAL
A decision from the Fourteenth Court of Appeals last week illustrated a problem that plagues the indigent defense system in Texas: the defendant is dissatisfied with his court-appointed lawyer. In this case, the defendant thus tried, ineptly, to represent himself at trial. Of course, a defendant has a constitutional right to have a lawyer represent him for free, but he does not have the choice of which lawyer will represent him unless he can pay the lawyer of his choosing. The defendant in the case from last week received a life sentence. Since a defendant must voluntarily waive his right to be represented by counsel, the argument on appeal was that the trial judge failed to properly warn the defendant about the dangers of self-representation. The defendant argued on appeal that the quality of court-appointed counsel "coerced" him into representing himself. Lawyer office in Georgia . The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, since refusing to allow the defendant to repr...