Glancy

This appeal presents the not unfamiliar, but always delicate, problem of the defendant who discharges his counsel early in the proceedings and then, in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt, contends that he has been denied due process of law.

The evidence shows that defendant conceived a plan: to pass forged Western Union money orders, and enlisted two confederates to carry out the scheme. Defendant arranged to have a genuine $5.00 money order sent from San Pedro to his home in Long Beach. Defendant then requested an offset printer to duplicate the form in blank. Defendant purchased check paper and arranged with a lithographer to prepare the plate. The lithographer notified the police, who asked that both he and the printer carry out defendant’s requests. However, a police officer was watching when one of defendant’s associates picked up the newly-printed money order blanks. The officer then followed and observed the delivery of the package to defendant. Later a police officer saw defendant drive his two associates to a drugstore, where one of them passed one of the counterfeits which had been filled out for $50. A search of defendant’s room, conducted under a search…