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Trial Court’s Failure to Address Defendant’s Requests to Proceed Pro Se Required Reversal

The First Department determined defendant had been deprived of his constitutional rights when the trial court failed to conduct a “dispassionate inquiry” in response to defendant’s repeated requests to proceed pro se:

A criminal defendant’s right to represent himself is a fundamental right guaranteed by both the federal and state constitutions. “[F]orcing a lawyer upon an unwilling defendant is contrary to his basic right to defend himself if he truly wants to do so” … . The only function of the trial court, in assessing a timely request to proceed pro se, is to ensure that the waiver was made intelligently and voluntarily …. . This requirement is not satisfied “simply by repeated judicial entreaties that a defendant persevere with the services of assigned counsel, or by judicial observations that a defendant’s interests are probably better served through a lawyer’s representation” … .

Defendant’s requests to proceed pro se were denied by the court without any inquiry whatsoever. People v Lewis, 2014 NY Slip Op 00592, 1st Dept 2-4-14

 

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