Taylor v. District Court in & for Washington County

1990 OK 90, 798 P.2d 611, 61 O.B.A.J. 2508, 1990 Okla. LEXIS 99, 1990 WL 138387

• Court: Supreme Court of Oklahoma
• Decided: September 25, 1990
• Docket: 74481
• Status: Published

Opinions

KAUGER, Justice.

In this case of first impression, the petitioner, Michael C. Taylor, requests that we assume original jurisdiction and issue a writ of prohibition to prevent the district court of Washington County from requiring him to represent indigent criminal defendants. The petitioner, whose practice is limited “almost exclusively to workers’ compensation and personal injury cases,” maintains an office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Taylor advertises the availability of his legal services in telephone directories which are distributed to several municipalities within the jurisdiction of the Washington County district court. Taylor alleges that as the result of this advertising, he has been arbitrarily, unfairly, unreasonably, unlawfully, and unconstitutionally singled out for court appointments of indigent defendants solely because of his advertising practices. Taylor also asserts that he has been forced to retain the services of a Bartlesville lawyer to comply with the court appointments pressed upon him by the Washington County Judiciary because he is not competent to represent indigent criminal defendants in Washington County. As the result of the district court’s refusal to grant his motion to withdraw from representation and of his request to deny future court appointments, the petitioner seeks extraordinary relief.

Under our holding in State v. Lynch (1990), 796 P.2d 1150 (Okla.1990), we advised appointing judges to first utilize voluntary pools and lawyers who maintain an office or practice regularly within the judicial district in which the appointment is to be made before resorting to intra-state appointments of counsel. Of course, lawyers cannot be targeted for expressing the first amendment rights to advertise granted by Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 383, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 2708-09, 53 L.Ed.2d 810, 835 (1977), reh’g denied 434 U.S. 881, 98 S.Ct. 242, 54 L.Ed.2d 164 (1977), and Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Assoc., 486 U.S. 466, 476, 108 S.Ct.1916, 1923, 100 L.Ed.2d 475, 486 (1988). Nor, under the constitutional principles discussed in Lynch, is it the responsibility of a lawyer to hire substitute counsel to perform the court appointed duty if the lawyer appointed is not competent to represent indigent defendants.

Under our pronouncement in Lynch, Taylor is entitled to a post-appointment show cause hearing. Although Taylor asserts that he maintains his office in Tulsa, the paperwork before us is insufficient for us to determine whether he regularly practices within the eleventh judicial district. For these reasons, we assume original jurisdiction and issue a writ prohibiting the trial court from appointing counsel until a show cause hearing has been held and the relevant questions determined under the guidelines adopted in Lynch.

In reaching these conclusions, we do not rely on federal authorities, and any reference thereto is solely for illustrative purposes.¹ The Oklahoma Constitution provides a bona fide, separate, adequate and independent ground upon which we rest our finding.

ORIGINAL JURISDICTION ASSUMED; WRIT OF PROHIBITION GRANTED.

HARGRAVE, C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER, ALMA WILSON and SUMMERS, JJ., concur.

OPALA, V.C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part for the reasons explained in State v. Lynch, 796 P.2d 1150, 1165 (1990) (OPALA, V.C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

SIMMS, J., concurs in part, dissents in part. DOOLIN, J., dissents.

1 . Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1042, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3476, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201, 1214 (1983).