Sixth.com

As core element of the Sixth Amendment is its guarantee of legal representation to citizens, while the Constitution simultaneously provides the right to pro se (“for onself”) defense. Navigation these dual rights has been a complex and long-running struggle for the Courts over recent decades.

The landmark case involving self-representation is Faretta v. California which ruled that defendants have a Constitutional right to refuse external counsel. In the 1975 case, the Court sided with California citizen Anthony Faretta, who was convicted of grant theft after the State Court denied him pro se representation and, instead, appointed a public defender to his case. The 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Potter Stewart, found that a defendant has a right to self representation, although application of this right subsequently denies any arguments against “ineffective assistance or counsel.”

Recent developments have improved the resources available to defendants who wish to represent themselves, including an extensive set of provisions provided by the State Courts in California in the wake of the Faretta decision. The right has its limits, however, as determined by Court rulings, as individuals cannot represent business entities (even if they are the owner) or estates, both of which require licensed legal representation.

A number of prominent pro se defendants have won affirmative rulings at the Supreme Court level including Edward Lawson, who successfully argued that a lack of identification is not sufficient grounds for arrest. Another prominent case involved a suspended attorney, Thomas Van Orden, who challenged the state of Texas (and then Govenor Perry) regarding the religious display at the Austin, Texas capital all the way to the Supreme Court, as a single defendant. A number of prominent studies have shown that pro se defendants, professional and otherwise, have performed reasonable well in the eyes of the court. Self representation is, and remains, a core part of American jurisprudence.

In recent years, a number of high profile cases related to Sixth Amendment rights have come before the Supreme Court. As the Court comes to define a more refined set of rights to representation, a number of pending Appeals-level cases are likely to further challenge existing precedents with respect to procedural rights. Two of the most prominent recent cases have led to an expansion of defendant rights in the eyes of the Court:

Riggins V. Nevada
This 1992 Supreme Court Case affirmed that no person can be forced to take medication as a precondition for remaining “competent” over the course of a trial. The case emerged when David Riggins was forced to ingest anti-psychotic medication by the State of Nevada, which he ruled had nullified his insanity defense, and, thus, denied him due process. After the State Supreme Court re-affirmed the lower court’s decision and conviction, the case went to the Supreme Court.

In a decision led by Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Court ruled that the State had violation Riggins’ Sixth and 14th Amendment rights to due process on a 7-2 basis (Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented from the ruling.) As a result of the ruling, States must evaluate the medical basis for prescribing medications, and must evaluate the potential treatments in light of the defendants health (not using the trial as the determining factor over medical rationale.)

United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez
A recent 2006 ruling held that a defendant who is denied legal representation is is entitled to freedom according to the Sixth Amendment. The court ruled 5-4 in defense of Missouri resident Cuauhtemoc Gonalzez-Lopez, who lost an Appeals Court case after the judge removed his preferred counsel for a “lack of professional conduct”.

The majority ruling, writing by Justice Scalia, argued that the court denied counsel as a “structural error, requiring reversal”. Four Justices dissented from the ruling, including Justice Alito, joined by Justices Roberts, Kennedy and Thomas, who argued that the 6th Amendment provides the right to “effective” counsel, not necessarily preferred counsel and that the lower court ruling should not be automatically overturned.