State v. Taylor

142 P.3d 1093, 207 Or. App. 649, 2006 Ore. App. LEXIS 1367
Court of Appeals of Oregon·Decided September 13, 2006·No. 0110-36994; A119911·Published·Cited by 13 cases

Opinion

*651 EDMONDS, J.

Defendant appeals from a conviction for Assault II. He makes four assignments of error in his brief prepared by counsel. Defendant also makes an assignment of error pro se. After considering the assignments of error, we affirm defendant’s conviction but remand for resentencing.

Defendant first assigns error to the trial court’s denial of his motion for substitution of counsel, arguing that the court erred in requiring him to proceed to trial without appointing substitute counsel to represent him at trial. Defendant made his motion to substitute counsel on the day set for trial. Previously, defendant had been tried on the same charge, but that trial ended in mistrial because the jury was unable to agree on a verdict. Defendant was to be represented by the same attorney, appointed at public expense, in the second trial. The attorney told the court that he was prepared to proceed with trial but that defendant wanted him to withdraw. The following discussion, which we quote at length, occurred.

“[DEFENDANT’S ATTORNEY]: He filed a bar complaint against me in June, June 12th. I responded to that. It was a simple bar complaint. I felt it raised a conflictual [sic] issue for me and [defendant]. In fact, before Judge Frankel’s settlement conference, I said, I’m your lawyer. Do you want me to represent you at this, in this process at this hearing, and he said that’s fine. We talked about that.
“Judge Frankel came in and said, We are going to have a settlement conference. Would you like to try to settle this case and [defendant’s attorney] is going to be here with you and continue to represent you, so that was fine at that point. He told me last week on my last phone call just before the phone was unfortunately disconnected again that he wanted me to renew the motion with Judge Frantz, so that I called Judge Frantz’s office and I talked with the clerk and she looked up the rule.
“I believe that was Donna. And Donna said, Well, it’s a gray area under the rule because although Judge Frantz had ruled on this exact same issue with the exact previous lawyer and exact previous lawyer before that with bar complaints that she felt that Judge Frantz would not handle *652 that because she had already heard the original case to remove me.
“Now, I can’t — I’m not going to get into the specifics of [defendant’s] bar complaint because, of course, that’s in the — yet an open record. Although all those records are open, I don’t think it’s yet an open record in my file. I don’t think it’s in that file.
“So I explained to him before the phone was disconnected that he would need to bring his own oral statement into the record before the court so that the court could consider whether or not there’s an actual conflict.
“I know that [defendant] filed the original motion— excuse me, bar complaint in June. I responded. He then complained about me. I didn’t respond to that because it raised ethical issues. It was more a personality complaint and now he’s filed another one, and I think that hit the bar last week and I haven’t responded to that one.
“It was essentially a reiteration of the previous complaint. Nothing [new] had come about from that. [Defendant] has told me that he believes that once he files a bar complaint that I have to get off his case.
* * * *
“So I didn’t mean to bring this so late to the court. I actually wanted to get in front of Judge Frantz last week but that couldn’t happen because of her schedule so [defendant], I think, has to approach the court with his motion to relieve me at this point because I cannot find any grounds to ask the court to withdraw me.
“THE COURT: Okay. [Defendant]?
“THE DEFENDANT: Yes. The first reason why I wanted him off my case is because when he — -when they assigned him to my case, they had already had a custody, 60-day custody extension for substitution of attorneys. That was the third one. The statute says they can only have two. You got the fourth one, which was illegal. How they got a custody extension I don’t know. The statute says two. He gets four. You deny me due process of the law and you violate my constitutional rights. He had no right getting two custody extensions because it’s against the law. They had a custody extension.
*653 “THE COURT: [Defendant], he needed to prepare your case. You wanted witnesses—
“THE DEFENDANT: He didn’t have to leave me in jail.
“THE COURT: The options — [defendant], usually the options are, you know, you don’t get three or four court-appointed attorneys. Just doesn’t happen that way. So the alternative would have been to just say I’m sorry, you’ve had two attorneys. We’re not going to appoint the third attorney for you and if you don’t agree to have this extension, then your attorney is not going to be able to prepare for trial. We won’t be able to find a lawyer for you.
“THE DEFENDANT: Gave him time to prepare.
“THE COURT: Okay. So what other objections do you have?
“THE DEFENDANT: That’s the number one. And number two, I got a civil rights lawsuit complaint against him. That’s another reason why I don’t want him on my case.
“THE COURT: Okay.
“THE DEFENDANT: And number three, he got a block on his phone. It’s been three months since my first trial. I can’t contact him. He don’t call me. Unless he call me for — called me twice two weeks ago. I ain’t talked to him but three times in three months. He didn’t work on my case. None.
“The last time I went to trial, I told him to get me three of my witnesses. He told me he couldn’t find but one of my witnesses. That’s why they impose the 30-day sentence is to get my witnesses. He has done nothing on my case, nothing.
“THE COURT: Well, he got a pretty good result at the last trial, didn’t he?
“THE DEFENDANT: Excuse me?
“THE COURT: He got a pretty good result.
“THE DEFENDANT: No, no, I don’t think so, no.
“THE COURT: You don’t think so?
“THE DEFENDANT: No.
“THE COURT: Okay. Any other objections that you have?
“THE DEFENDANT: No, that’s it.
*654 “THE COURT: All right. Now—
“ [DEFENDANT’S ATTORNEY]: Judge, could I—
“THE COURT: Sure.

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State v. Taylor, 142 P.3d 1093, 207 Or. App. 649, 2006 Ore. App. LEXIS 1367 (Or. Ct. App. 2006).

142 P.3d 1093 (State v. Taylor) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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