Washington – The Supreme Court used a Hollywood example – the bumbling attorney in “My Cousin Vinny” – in debating a case Tuesday about an accused man’s right to pick his own lawyer.
In the 1992 movie, Alabama authorities mistakenly arrest two New York students for a convenience-store murder, and a brash family lawyer played by Joe Pesci defends them in his very first trial.
In the real case argued Tuesday before the Supreme Court, an accused drug dealer wanted an award-winning out-of-state lawyer to defend him on charges in Missouri, but the trial judge improperly refused to allow it.
Nine out of 10 federal criminal defendants are indigent and represented by court-appointed lawyers, the justices were told. But when defendants can afford lawyers, the court has held that they have a right to make their own choices.
The high court is deciding now whether a person is automatically entitled to a new trial if that choice is wrongly blocked.
Justice Antonin Scalia said “your freedom’s at stake, you should be able to use all your money” on the best lawyer, or at least one you trust. “You’re entitled to the lawyer you want,” Scalia said.
After the judge refused to let California lawyer Joseph Low represent Cuauhtemoc Gonzalez-Lopez in Missouri, the defendant used a less-experienced local lawyer and was convicted of conspiracy to sell marijuana.
Low attended the trial anyway but was forced to sit in the spectator section with a court-assigned marshal separating him from his would-be client.
An appeals court overturned the conviction on grounds that the defendant’s constitutional right to an attorney was violated.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Gonzalez-Lopez was “ready, willing and able” to pay for Low but was “instead stuck with … the junior counsel.” It was the local attorney’s first federal criminal trial.
Not all members of the court appeared ready to embrace the proposition that convictions should always be overturned in those cases.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that it may turn out that a trial was still fair, even with a person’s second or third choice of a lawyer.
