Does the Sixth Amendment Apply?

Here’s an interesting story from Maine:

For what could be the first time in Maine, a judge has stripped a criminal defendant of his constitutional right to have an attorney and has ordered the man to represent himself at his trial.

…But the judge in the case, Justice Thomas Warren, said Nisbet’s behavior and the fact that he has gone through five court-appointed lawyers since his arrest in 2011 has left “no other alternative” than to order Nisbet to represent himself.

The judge issued the order last month after Nisbet’s most recent attorneys, Jon Gale and Neale Duffett, sought to withdraw from the case, claiming in a motion that Nisbet threatened Gale while they met with him in the Cumberland County Jail on Feb. 26.

According to the motion, Nisbet told them, “I don’t care if I get 15 years, when I get out, I will be outside your house with a high-powered BB gun and I will take your eye out. I’m not getting life. I’ll never forget. I’m coming after you when I get out.”

Nisbet says he never threatened Gale with violence, and that the attorneys invented the story as a way to get out of the case after he refused to plead guilty and threatened to sue them. Neither Gale nor Duffett has sought to have Nisbet charged with making a threat.

I actually have met the defendant. I went to elementary school with his cousin, and I think he was at a few of his birthday parties. That’s the extent of my memories of him. My mother knows his mother, and her account is that this story is not surprising. I certainly don’t recognize him from his mug shots and from the press photos, but years of hard-living really has changed his face from the kid I played with.

Still I strongly disagree with how the reporter started this case. The judge has NOT deprived him of appointed counsel, he has to date had FIVE appointed lawyers, only the most recent pair have stated their reason for withdrawing, but that last reason is reason enough to not work with him. If he’s threatened bodily harm to his counsel that’s reason enough for the lawyers to withdraw. He wasn’t denied his 6th Amendment right, he’s essentially REFUSED it.

In this country you have the right to request a state appointed attorney in a criminal case, but that is NOT in violation of the 14th Amendment on part of the counselors.

I almost want to see if this case goes to the Maine supreme court, as Maine has never ruled on a case like this.

Also interesting that a violent felon and admitted drug addict seems to think the police are out to frame him for armed robbery. Yeah, cops just get bored and look for a junkie to frame.