# Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, Fourth Appellate District

> Supreme Court of the United States · January 24, 2000 · 528 U.S. 152

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433885

## Case

- **Full name:** Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, Fourth Appellate District
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** January 24, 2000
- **Citations:** 528 U.S. 152; 120 S. Ct. 684; 145 L. Ed. 2d 597; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 502
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Breyer
- **Judges:** Scalia, Stevens, Rehnquist, O'Connok, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Scaua
- **Cited by:** 765 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433885

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that “the [Sixth] Amendment itself does not provide any basis for finding a right to self-representation on appeal [or a right to appeal]” and holding “that neither the holding nor the reasoning in Faretta requires California to recognize a constitutional right to self…
- stating that “standby counsel may participate in the trial proceedings, even without the express consent of the defendant, as long as that participation does not seriously undermin[e] the appearance before the jury *301 that the defendant is representing himself’
- holding that the appellant had no constitutional right to represent himself on appeal and no right to a “hybrid” form of representation in which he would be represented by counsel while also acting simultaneously as his own counsel
- holding that because the Sixth Amendment does not include any right to appeal, it necessarily follows that the Sixth Amendment itself does not provide a basis for finding a right to self-representation on appeal
- stating that in “light of our conclusion that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to appellate proceedings, any individual right to self-representation on appeal . . . must be grounded in the Due Process Clause”

## Opinion text

Justice Breyer,
concurring.
I agree with the Court and join its opinion. Because Justice Scalia writes separately to underscore the continuing constitutional validity of Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975), I note that judges closer to the firing line have sometimes expressed dismay about the practical consequences of that holding. See, e. g., United States v. Farhad, 190 F. 3d 1097, 1107 (CA9 1999) (concurring opinion) (right of self-representation “frequently, though not always, conflicts squarely and inherently with the right to a fair trial”). I have found no empirical research, however, that might help determine whether, in general, the right to represent oneself furthers, or inhibits, the Constitution’s basic guarantee of fairness. And without some strong factual basis for believing that Faretta’s holding has proved counterproductive in *165 practice, we are not in a position to reconsider the constitutional assumptions that underlie that case.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433885. Public record. Not legal advice.