Lawrence S. Bittaker v. J. J. Enomoto

Lawrence S. Bittaker was convicted in a California court on a charge of burglary some four years before Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 , 95 S.Ct. 2525 , 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), confirmed to defendants in state prosecutions the constitutional right of self-representation earlier recognized in federal courts. Bittaker brought habeas corpus before Faretta . The district court held after Faretta that the state’s denial of Bittaker’s right of self-representation was a federal constitutional defect requiring the setting aside of his state conviction. The state appeals; we affirm.

While the parties have briefed and argued the case in terms of the “retroactivity” of Faretta , it is not necessary to reach that question because the law of this circuit at the time of Bittaker’s state court trial had already been established in a fashion consistent with the Supreme Court’s statement of the law in Faretta. Arnold v. United States, 414 F.2d 1056, 1058 (9th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1021 , 90 S.Ct. 593 , 24 L.Ed.2d 514 (1970); Bayless v. United States, 381 F.2d 67, 71 (9th Cir. 1967). This circuit had stated in federal cases that self-representation was a corollary of the Sixth…