[Download] "Elevating Choice over Quality of Representation: United States V. Gonzalez-Lopez." by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Elevating Choice over Quality of Representation: United States V. Gonzalez-Lopez.
Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
Release Date : January 22, 2006
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 271 KB

Description

The Supreme Court's Counsel Clause jurisprudence generally has been preoccupied with the effect of alleged violations on the fairness and reliability of the trial process. (1) This approach seemed ripe for reexamination after Crawford v. Washington, which held that the Sixth Amendment does not provide a substantive guarantee of a fair trial, but rather specifies the procedural safeguards that must be present for a trial to comport with the Constitution. (2) Last Term, in United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, (3) the Court eliminated the need to revisit these problematic precedents by redefining the criminal defendant's right "to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." (4) In holding by a 5-4 vote that a defendant's right to counsel is necessarily violated whenever he is erroneously deprived of his first-choice attorney, the Court declared that "counsel of choice"--the liberty to choose one's lawyer--was the central meaning of the Counsel Clause. (5) It thereby imported customary practice into the Constitution without a sound basis either in precedent or in the text, structure, or historical purpose of the Sixth Amendment. Shortly after Cuauhtemoc Gonzalez-Lopez was charged with conspiring to distribute marijuana in the Eastern District of Missouri, he retained California lawyer Joseph Low to represent him. (6) Low applied to the district court for admission pro hac vice, but was twice rebuffed without explanation. (7) Finally, the court explained that it had denied Low's application because he had violated the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct by communicating with Gonzalez-Lopez and with the defendants in another case without their respective attorneys' permission. (8) Gonzalez-Lopez proceeded to trial with a local attorney, Karl Dickhaus, and was convicted. (9)