Willie Jones, Jr. v. United States
Environmental SocialSecurity Securities Immigration
Did the Ninth Circuit's disposition of Petitioner's Faretta claim conflict with Faretta v. California?
QUESTION PRESENTED FOR REVIEW Under Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), a defendant in a criminal case has a virtually inviolable right under the Sixth Amendment to represent himself at trial. The Court in Faretta enumerated only two exceptions to this rule. First, the defendant “must knowingly and intelligently” decide to “relinquish[] . . . many of the traditional benefits associated with the right to counsel.” 422 U.S. at 834. And second, and perhaps most importantly here, “the trial judge may terminate self-representation by a defendant who deliberately engages in serious and obstructionist misconduct.” Id. at 834 n.46. The question presented is as follows: Did the Ninth Circuit’s disposition of Petitioner’s Faretta claim, which permitted the district court to deny it after determining that Petitioner had asserted it solely for dilatory purposes, conflict not only with Faretta itself, which had not enumerated that exception, but also opinions from at least one of its sister federal court of appeals and several state supreme courts?