Inmate on Death Row Gets Reprieve

A Los Angeles man who was sentenced to death after confessing to murder and other crimes won a rare reprieve Thursday from the California Supreme Court, which held that he was wrongly denied the right to represent himself during his trial.

The state high court ruled unanimously that a Los Angeles judge erred when he summarily denied Omar Dent III’s request to act as his own lawyer during his trial on charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping.

In a separate opinion, three of the court’s seven justices complained that they had “no choice” but to overturn the convictions because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that defendants have a constitutional right to represent themselves. The three said the high court ruling should be modified.

Dent, 40, received the death penalty for murdering, robbing and kidnapping a Los Angeles merchant in 1988 and attempting to murder a second man who tried to intervene.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Russell A. Lehman said Thursday that he will consider an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and that he expects that Los Angeles prosecutors will “make every effort” to retry Dent.

In an opinion written by Justice Janice Rogers Brown, the court said that a trial judge must permit defendants to represent themselves if they make the request voluntarily, intelligently and in a timely manner, “irrespective of how unwise such a choice might appear to be.”

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John P. Shook denied Dent the right to act as his own lawyer because it was “a death penalty trial,” the state high court said. At the time, Shook was removing Dent’s two lawyers because they had missed court appearances or showed up late. As his trial was about to start, Dent informed the judge that he would prefer to represent himself rather than have new attorneys appointed for him.

“The court feels, because of the nature of the charge, you are not able to represent yourself adequately,” Shook said. Shook appointed new lawyers later that day, and Dent did not repeat his request.

Dent robbed Byung Kim, who owned a small Los Angeles grocery store, shortly after Kim withdrew $80,000 from a bank for his business, prosecutors said. Dent then shot Kim and fled in his van with the dying victim next to him, they said. Dent was caught after he shot a retired police officer who tried to rescue Kim, according to prosecutors. Five years before the murder, Dent had been convicted of manslaughter in another case, the court said.

Though Shook improperly denied Dent’s request, the state Supreme Court could have upheld the conviction if the evidence showed that there were other proper grounds for refusing Dent’s request, the court said. But the court said it could find no proper grounds.

When defendants ask to represent themselves, judges must make them aware of the dangers and disadvantages of such an approach, but cannot deny the motion simply because a defendant knows nothing about the law, the court said.

“It is apparent the trial court denied the self-representation request because of the court’s erroneous understanding of the law, not because the request was equivocal or untimely,” Brown wrote.

“The evidence against the defendant was overwhelming,” Brown said in People vs. Dent, “and our review of the record indicates defendant was vigorously and adequately represented and received a fair trial.”

Brown also joined a concurring opinion with Justices Marvin Baxter and Ming W. Chin, stressing that the court overturned the conviction “only under the compulsion” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Faretta vs. California.

“It appears defendant received a fair trial,” Chin wrote for the three. “His guilt seems beyond question. And I have no doubt that counsel represented him better than he would have done himself.

“But, under Faretta, none of this matters. We must reverse the judgment because the trial court did not allow defendant to represent himself.”

Chin said that if Dent is retried, he could elect to have new attorneys or represent himself.

“If he does request new counsel, then all that the trial court’s error in denying self-representation will have accomplished is to give defendant two trials, not just one, in which he is represented by counsel,” Chin wrote. “This result is hard to explain in any rational manner.”

Chief Assistant State Public Defender Barry Helft, whose office represented Dent, said he could not comment on the ruling because he had not yet read it.