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 represent himself would have violated his right to represent himself, and because the defendant was warned about the dangers of self-representation. The Court also rejected the argument that the defendant was not competent enough to act as a lawyer, i.e., that his waiver was invalid because it was unwise; the Court said that the standard for waiving the right to counsel is generally not any higher than the standard of competency to stand trial. Under such competency standard, a defendant may proceed if he has sufficient present ability to evaluate the case with a reasonable degree of rational understanding.