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.
