DueProcess HabeasCorpus
Can a trial court lose its jurisdiction when a defendant has incompetent representation, as it does when there is a physical absence of counsel at trial?
QUESTION PRESENTED Can a trial court lose its jurisdiction when a defendant who : has incompetent representation, that is established under prevailing Sixth Amendment standards, in the same way as a court loses its jurisdiction when there was a physical absence of counsel at trial, and if so, did the court in Mr. Thompson's case lose its jurisdiction over him by his counsel providing ~ incompetent representation? Case law from this Court seems to suggest that a court can lose its jurisdiction over a defendant in both scenarios, and the Alaska Court of Appeals refused to acknowledge this, in violation of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the United States Constitution, and in turn, violating Mr. Thompson's due process right, under the Fourteenth Amendment. ’ i