You Can Represent Yourself, But Not Back in Chambers

Holt v. State, Minn.S.Ct., 9/3/2009.  A jury convicted Mr. Holt of first degree premeditated murder, among other things, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison.  Nine years later, Mr. Holt filed a post conviction petition in which he raised seven issues.  Many were evidentiary and instructional rulings; the two interesting ones relate to the right of self representation.

In the middle of trial, Mr. Holt asked to represent himself, which the trial court granted.  A day or two later, one of the juror’s reported that twice someone had tried to break into his house.   The trial court held an in-chambers hearing to question the juror; Mr. Holt was not permitted to attend this hearing even though he was by then representing himself.  The juror stated that he thought that he could continue to be a fair juror so the trial court left him on the jury.  On appeal, Mr. Holt asked the appellate court to adopt an “implied bias” standard but the appellate court declined to do so.

During the colloquy on self representation, the trial court warned Mr. Holt that he would not be permitted to attend bench or in-chambers conferences, but that the substance of such conferences would be put on the record and stand by counsel could attend them.  With that in mind, the appellate court rejected Mr. Holt’s complaint that his Faretta rights had been violated by his exclusion from the in-chambers hearing with the juror.  That exclusion did not, the appellate court, concluded, hamper Mr. Holt’s control over his own case. 

Justices Page and Paul Anderson dissented, pointing out that there was no reason why the hearing with the juror could not have been held in the courtroom.  The trial court improperly forced Mr. Holt to chose between forgoing completely his constitutional right of self representation and accepting seemingly arbitrary limitations on his right to be present at all stages of his trial.