Faretta v. California
- Decided
- June 30, 1975
- Docket
- 73-5772
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 11,585 timesNo negative treatment found in this library
What later courts said
- recognizing that the right to assistance of counsel developed long ago under the common law — In the Interest of E.R.W. (2017)
- recognizing that the right of self-representation is not a license to not comply with the relevant procedural rules — In re Birmingham (2006)
- holding that a defendant has a constitutional right to proceed pro se in a criminal trial — Andrew B. Schilling v. Walworth County Park & Planning Commission (1986)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
[*807] Me. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of our Constitution guarantee that a person brought to trial in any state or federal court must be afforded the right to the assistance of counsel before he can be validly convicted and punished by imprisonment. This clear constitutional rule has emerged from a series of cases decided here over the last 50 years.[1] The question before us now is whether a defendant in a state criminal trial has a constitutional right to proceed without counsel when he voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so. Stated another way, the question is whether a State may constitutionally hale a person into its criminal courts and there force a lawyer upon him, even when he insists that he wants to conduct his own defense. It is not an easy question, but we have concluded that a State may not constitutionally do so.
I
Statutes cited
Cite this
Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975)Read the full opinion
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