Does a defendant have a right to waive the assistance of counsel and represent himself at trial?
California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Wilcox, C060645, No.MF030896A (Cal. App. 2010):
A criminal defendant has a federal constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to waive the assistance of counsel and to represent himself. (Faretta v. California (1975) 422 U.S. 806, 819-820 [45 L.Ed.2d 562] (Faretta).) Defendant asserts that his self-representation denied him a fundamentally fair trial in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. This contention has been routinely rejected for the same reasons we reject the contention here.
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