United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez

In United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez (2006) 548 U.S. 140, the defendant's family retained Attorney John Fahle to represent him on a drug-related charge. After the arraignment, defendant retained Joseph Low, a California attorney. A week after an evidentiary hearing before a Magistrate Judge, defendant informed Fahle he wanted Low alone to represent him. The district court twice denied Low's application for admission pro hac vice without explanation. The appellate court dismissed Low's application for a writ of mandamus. As the case proceeded to trial, Low was forbidden to contact Karl Dickhaus, Fahle's replacement, and his only contact with defendant was the night before the guilty verdict was returned. (Id. at pp. 142-143.) The Supreme Court concluded the trial court violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right of counsel in light of the Government's concession of erroneous deprivation of such counsel and found the violation to be structural error mandating reversal. (Gonzalez-Lopez, supra, 548 U.S. at pp. 148-150.) In finding the error to be structural in nature, the Court explained: "Different attorneys will pursue different strategies with regard to investigation and discovery, development of the theory of defense, selection of the jury, presentation of the witnesses, and style of witness examination and jury argument. And the choice of attorney will affect whether and on what terms the defendant cooperates with the prosecution, plea bargains, or decides instead to go to trial. In light of these myriad aspects of representation, the erroneous denial of counsel bears directly on the 'framework within which the trial proceeds,'--or indeed on whether it proceeds at all. It is impossible to know what different choices the rejected counsel would have made, and then to quantify the impact of those different choices on the outcome of the proceedings. Many counseled decisions, including those involving plea bargains and cooperation with the government, do not even concern the conduct of the trial at all. Harmless-error analysis in such a context would be a speculative inquiry into what might have occurred in an alternate universe." (Id. at p. 151.)