Lucero

*535 Defendant Jesus Manuel Lucero has a history of failing to appear. Among other things, he failed to appear during most of his trial in this case. The trial court nevertheless proceeded with the trial in his absence, and a jury found him guilty.

Defendant's appointed counsel, John Dorr, filed a motion for new trial, arguing that there had been good cause for defendant's absence from trial. At argument on the motion, however, Dorr conceded that the motion was untimely, and the trial court denied it as untimely, without even reading it. In a previous appeal, we held that the motion was not untimely, and that Dorr rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel by conceding that it was. We directed the trial court to rule on the merits of the motion.

On remand, the trial court duly held a hearing on the new trial motion; once again, Dorr represented defendant, and once again, defendant failed to appear. The trial court found that defendant was voluntarily absent; it then proceeded to deny the motion.

Defendant appeals. In the published portion of this opinion, we will hold that, while Dorr's previous ineffective assistance afforded sufficient grounds to relieve him…