can't represent yourself in court because it's a "drug charge"?

In My Humble Opinion
1

if someone is charged with a crime, under what circumstances can they be forbid to represent themselves?

does that answer change if it’s a “drug crime”?

if they expressed desire to act as their own counsel, can they be forbid to even enter a not guilty plea without a lawyer present, with the judge explaining ‘he won’t allow people charged with a drug crime to represent themselves’ and, when he said he wanted to represent himself, the judge saying ‘try showing back up without an attorney next time & I’ll put you in jail until can find one’.

*this is a friend of mines son who’s been charged, my friend having sat in on his attempt to enter a plea & then relaying to me what she heard the judge tell her son.

*i have no dog in this fight, i just find it surprising and kinda unbelievable. i always thought representing one’s self was a right.

*i don’t care to hear whether or not it’s a good idea, i know it’s not. just whether or not the judge can do that or not.

  • if it matters, it was a pot charge. he’s recently an adult, no trouble before.
2

Something smells about this. You may not have the whole or the true story.

3

Legal advice is best suited to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

4

that could be the case, but so far it seems fairly straightforward. he said he was arrested, did some video process in front of the judge & was given a court date to show back up with counsel. he then bailed out.
days later-
she took him up there, without counsel, and tried entering a plea. the judge told him it wasn’t going to happen without an attorney, set him another date.

days later-
she took him back up there again, without counsel, and he told the judge he couldn’t afford an attorney (they wouldn’t allow a public defender because he’d posted bail) and he said he wished to represent his self, apparently adding that he thought it was his constitutional right to do so. that’s when the judge said what I’d first mentioned about not in “drug cases”.
had my friend not been there both times, i wouldn’t have believed it.

  • doesn’t mean i have the whole story, I’ve just known her forever & she’s can understand English/words just fine & isn’t the type to embellish.
5

sorry about that.

i was thinking there would be set in stone answers to those questions is why I’d put it there.

for future reference, do all legal questions go in imho?

6

Questions about actual legal cases go in IMHO, since we are not going to have all the facts in the case and interpretations may vary. Factual questions about basic questions of law can go in GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

7

I’m speculating here but the judge probably wasn’t telling him it was legally impossible to represent yourself at a trial for drug crimes. He was probably advising the defendant that it was a really bad idea to represent yourself at a trial for something serious like drug crimes. And the fact that the defendant doesn’t know whether or not that’s legal is the reason why him representing himself is an incredibly bad idea.

8

I’d said something along those lines to her and she said he seemed like he was acting like he was mad that his recommendation wasn’t followed. when her son mentioned the part about his constitutional rights the judge apparently told him ‘if he said so much as one other word to him, he was going to arrest him for contempt’ and told him to ‘nod if he understood he better have a lawyer next time’. he nodded.

she thought he was more trying to support the system, so to speak.

i agree, it doesn’t sound right/ legal, but what do i know.

9

Yeah, this.

The judge is telling him not to do so, and even going so far as to give him multiple attempts to show up with one. He’s trying like hell to keep this guy from being a moron.

10

Could it be possible the judge knows something about this case, something that “smells” about the role law enforcement played, maybe recognizes the arresting officer (and not in a good way), and is advising your friend/friend’s son to “get a lawyer” so that trained legal counsel can “smell the rat” and get your friend’s son off?

11

Unlikely. But the judge probably knows that there could be all kinds of issues that a lawyer would need to explore, even if nothing jumps out.

12

they’re gonna come by after they get through doing some Christmas shopping. I’m gonna see if i can’t separate him from his mom long enough to ask him a few questions.

maybe that’ll shine some light on this.
can i assume that it’s the generally held opinion that people are in fact allowed to represent themselves (if they’re of adult age and they aren’t disqualified from doing so for some lack of capacity to)?
my thoughts are - if you’re innocent until proven guilty, it shouldn’t matter what charges your facing. otherwise, you’d be losing a constitutional right from merely being accused of something.

13

any thing’s possible i suppose. in your scenario that’d almost be like they were doing their internal investigations on the financial backs of those charged with crimes (versus internally, like by allowing a “public defender” who was actually an internal affairs person from another town or something), but i guess as citizens, occasionally someones gotta take one for the team.

14

IANAL, but it seems to me that a criminal case (such a drug possession) has more rules than, say a civil case. In your state it may be improper to represent yourself in a criminal case. It may even be illegal. I don’t think the Judge is being mean, he is probably following the letter of the law. Tell them to call an Attorney. It looks like the Judge isn’t gonna let him do it himself, for whatever reason. It is his court room, btw, and you don’t want to be on his bad side.

15

It’s possible that what the judge knows about this case is that /he/ isn’t going to hear it until the defendent gets a lawyer.

And I think ??? that in theory it’s not constitutional ??? to let a defendant rot in jail without a hearing, there have been some high-profile cases where exactly that has happened.

16

I think the judge is trying very hard to communicate to this young man that without a lawyer, it IS going to go very, very badly for him. How does he know that? Because unlike the young man, he knows the law. He also likely knows if this case isn’t handled professionally and is mishandled, the judge’s hands will be tied, and possibly the decision he’ll be forced to render, will ruin this young man’s future.

Does the kid have a constitutional right to act against his own interest, out of ignorance of the law, even in the face of repeated sound advice? Possibly.

Maybe it’s also the case that the judge could be looking towards the inevitable appeal, after it goes predictably, horribly wrong for the kid, in court. If you were warned repeatedly to get competent counsel and choose not to, how much appeal leeway, based on incompetent counsel,do they have to give you? How much of the courts time and the public purse do you get to spend, out of your own willful ignorance/ arrogance? I’m not sure, but it seems like it could be a factor to me.

Also, isn’t it possible this judge knows the appeal will be treated very harshly and is trying to get the kid to listen?

17

This is a third hand so the red flag I see may not actually be there. What I see as a red flag is this (I assume) adult is being taken around by Mommy. Mommy is taking him to enter a plea. Mommy is there to try and get the PD. Mommy is acting as his counsel. The judge sees this and is telling the guy to grow up and get a lawyer and take care of this himself.

What also seems screwy is saying that he can’t get a public defender because he could post bail. That makes no sense. There are limits due to financial status but using the fact that you can make bail as the factor sounds very wrong. Most likely he had to fill out a financial disclosure form.

18

they just left, i got to talk to him for a few minutes.

so, he got pulled over, officer smelled pot, passenger hadn’t appeared for a recent court date & had a warrant, his car got searched. officer found a prescription pill container on her son that had no label on it & an oily fluid something or other in it (more on that in a minute). the cop asked what it was & he said he didn’t know. another cop that had shown up took it back to his car & came back with a roadside test kit test that said it was a cannabis oil of sorts. her son asks them to test it in front of him versus two cars back, cop declined.

both guys go to jail.

her son swears on his life to me tonight it wasn’t anything illegal, he didn’t want to say what it was though (more below).

anyway, he bonds out of jail, went to court that one day, was told to come back with an attorney.

he spoke to an attorney the next day, they told him the substance was going to have to be lab tested, it was going to cost him $1500 to retain him, more if it goes to trial.

he thinks screw that, they’re going to be testing it anyway it sounds like, when they do they’ll see it’s not anything illegal, no need for an attorney.

he goes back to court, talks to the d.a. before appearing in front of the judge, gets told they won’t send it to the lab at all till a plea is made. he’s that more more adamant about ‘defending’ himself thinking it feels like a scam, again from ‘knowing’ he’s not guilty.

judge is still having none of it.

he’s found a cheaper attorney, is still pissed he’s having to as “being innocent is sure costing him a lot”.

next court appearance next week.
*my thoughts on this are, if he’s being truthful, i agree it sucks to wait to test the stuff since it could end the process & not waste the courts time/ tax payers money.

*he wouldn’t tell me what the substance was, from my asking him & trying to guess several times, i wanna say it was something from an adult novelty store, possibly a head shop.

  • there’s the unfortunate possibility that he is telling the truth, but what they end up testing isn’t what they confiscated. I’d like to think that never happens, but it can & does sometimes. I’m not one to blindly believe that someone’s innocent because they claim to be, but I’m a pretty good read on people that are right in front of me & i feel 99.9% her son is being honest with me.

I’m interested to hear what happens on this, I’ll share when i know more, will likely be after the Christmas holiday (not sure how long the lab tests take).

19

he is a bit of a titty baby, but the main reason she’s taking him is he wrecked his car several weeks back, it’s in the body shop & she won’t let him drive her car.

regarding the if people make bail they get denied a public defender, i can vouch for that knowing other people over the years that were told that. they think if you can pay to get out, you can pay for counsel. if you need a public defender, you’ll consult with them in jail while you wait for your trial date.

20

In Faretta v. California the Supreme Court said a defendant can refuse counsel when he when he “voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so.”

Seems to me the judge decided the kid’s decision to not get a lawyer was not made “intelligently.” Based on mr horsepower’s account (the kid was found with a prescription container with an oily fluid on it that the kid swears was not cannabis but can’t say what it was) I’d say the judge is making the right call. Even a bad lawyer would probably get this worked out with the DA in an hour. If the kid insists on going to court and representing himself he’ll try to argue that the test was bogus. He’ll lose because the cops will swear the test was done by the numbers, and who are you going to believe.

So the kid can hire a cheap lawyer now, or hire an expensive one for the appeal.