CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT ADOPTS GODINEZ V. MORAN STANDARD FOR SELF REPRESENTATION

The California Supreme Court in People v. Taylor held that any person who is competent to stand trial and who is competent to waive his/her right to an attorney is able to represent him/herself. A waiver of counsel must be “knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.”

When a defendant makes a Faretta motion to represent him/herself the court must voir dire the defendant to determine if he/she understands the consequences of self representation. If the defendant understands the consequences the court must allow the defendant to waive the right to counsel and grant the motion.

Keith Desmond Taylor was convicted and sentenced to death for a murder that occured during a residential burglary. Prior to trial he had problems getting along with his court appointed attorney. He made several motions to represent himself and on his final motion it was granted. His appointed attorney was then appointed to act in an advisory capacity. (Later it was changed to standby counsel meaning that he would take over representation during the trial if Taylor’s right to represent himself was terminated.)

On appeal his appointed counsel argued, inter alia that he was not competent to represent himself, despite the court’s finding that he was competent to stand trial.

As in California law, Federal courts allow any defendant who makes a knowing intelligent and voluntary waiver of the right to counsel to represent themself as long as they are competent to stand trial. The United States Supreme Court in Godinez v. Moran held that while the Federal standard for competencey to stand trial and competency to represent oneself is the sames states are free to insist upon a higher standard of competency in order to represent oneself that the competency level necessary to stand trial. But in Taylor the California Supreme Court reviewed the history of self representation in California and found that the state, like the Federal government uses the same competency standard for both standing trial and representing oneself.