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Can I Represent Myself?: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

By Baker Associates

As the past couple of articles on this blog have noted, criminal defendants have the right to represent themselves at trial thanks to the United States Supreme Court holding in Faretta v. California. However, as has also been noted, this can be a risky proposition. The previous article focused on the complexity of the rules of evidence and how they may pose a problem for inexperienced defendants at trial. This article focuses on an extension of that principle: ineffective assistance of counsel. Ineffective assistance of counsel is one of the most popularly raised issues in criminal appeals. This is primarily so, because many defendants who are convicted at trial feel (rightly or wrongly) that if their lawyer had been more effective or attentive that they would have been acquitted...continue to full post

Full post as published by Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog on March 26, 2010 (boomark / email).