Supreme Court Update #2

The U.S. Supreme Court issued five opinions yesterday. In each, Alito and Roberts provided votes for the conservative position.

In Kansas v. Marsh, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito joined in Clarence Thomas’s opion that the judiciary should not over-rule the voters on the issue of capital punishment. Redhawk Review has a good summary of the case.

U.S. v. Gonzalez is an interesting case primarly because of the lineup of justices who voted each way. Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, was joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer in holding that “A trial court???s erroneous deprivation of a criminal defendant???s choice of counsel entitles him to reversal of his conviction.”

Alito wrote the dissenting opinion, in which he was joined by Roberts, Thomas, and Kennedy. He argued:

I disagree with the Court???s conclusion that a criminal conviction must automatically be reversed whenever a trial court errs in applying its rules regarding pro hac vice admissions and as a result prevents a defendant from being represented at trial by the defendant???s first-choice attorney. Instead, a defendant should be required to make at least some showing that the trial court???s erroneous ruling adversely affected the quality of assistance that the defendant received. In my view, the majority???s contrary holding is based on an incorrect interpretation of the Sixth Amendment and a misapplication of harmless-error principles. I respectfully dissent.

The majority makes a subtle but important mistake at the outset in its characterization of what the Sixth Amendment guarantees. The majority states that the Sixth Amendment protects ???the right of a defendant who does not require appointed counsel to choose who willrepresent him.??? Ante, at 3. What the Sixth Amendment actually protects, however, is the right to have the assistance that the defendant???s counsel of choice is able to provide. It follows that if the erroneous disqualification of
a defendant???s counsel of choice does not impair the assistance that a defendant receives at trial, there is no violation of the Sixth Amendment.

After a careful examination of the legislative history behind the Sixth Amendment, Alito added:

Because the Sixth Amendment focuses on the quality of the assistance that counsel of choice would have provided, I would hold that the erroneous disqualification of counsel does not violate the Sixth Amendment unless the ruling diminishes the quality of assistance that the defendant would have otherwise received.

Alito makes an interesting and thought-provoking case. Put in simple terms (if I understand correctly), if the government makes a mistake in disqualifying a qualified lawyer, but the defendant receives an adequate and sufficient defense yet is convicted, his conviction cannot be overturned on this technicality.

If this is a sign of the future of American jurisprudence, then the future looks promising.

Tags: Conservative