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Bollinger v. State4/8/2005
William Bollinger appeals from his convictions for obstructing an officer, stalking, and influencing a witness (three counts), asserting that the trial court erred by: (1) finding he knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel; (2) failing to sustain a continuing witness objection; and (3) failing to merge two of his influencing a witness convictions. Because we find that Bollinger's claims of error have no merit, we affirm.
1. Bollinger contends he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his right to counsel because the trial court did not: (1) discuss that he "would be required to make strategic decisions as to voir dire and striking jury members"; (2) mention that he would make decisions about which witnesses to call; (3) make it clear that certain issues must be properly preserved for appeal; and (4) go over the specific defenses available to him.
The determination of whether there has been an intelligent waiver of the right to counsel must depend, in each case, upon the particular facts and circumstances surrounding that case, including the background, experience, and conduct of the accused. . . . he trial judge has the responsibility of determining whether the accused has intelligently waived his right to counsel. The constitutional right of an accused to be represented by counsel invokes, of itself, the protection of a trial court, in which the accused - whose life or liberty is at stake - is without counsel. This protecting duty imposes the serious and weighty responsibility upon the trial judge of determining whether there is an intelligent and competent waiver by the accused.
Generally, in order to validly waive the right to counsel, the defendant should understand: (1) the nature of the charges; (2) any statutory lesser included offenses; (3) the range of possible punishments, including a jail sentence; (3) possible defenses; (5) mitigating circumstances; (6) that the rules of evidence will be enforced against him; (7) that he must make strategic decisions about testifying, calling witnesses, conducting voir dire, and striking jurors; and (8) that issues must be preserved and transcribed in order to make them on appeal. However, our Supreme Court has emphasized "that it is not incumbent upon the trial court to make each of these inquiries." Instead, " he record need only reflect that the accused was made aware of the dangers of self-representation and nevertheless made a knowing and intelligent waiver." Thus, " ontrary to the implication in some appellate decisions, the warnings required to meet constitutional muster need not take any rigid form, and specific questions need not be asked on the record."
Here, the record shows that shortly before the trial began, Bollinger's appointed counsel announced that although he had assisted Bollinger with pretrial matters, Bollinger had informed the court in pretrial that he wanted to represent himself during trial. A transcript of the pretrial conference is not in the record before us, but the trial court's statements made on the record at trial indicate Bollinger may have been warned about the dangers of self-representation at the pretrial conference. Before the start of his trial, the court confirmed that Bollinger still planned to represent himself at trial, even though a public defender had been appointed to represent him. The trial court explained that the public defender would be available to assist Bollinger throughout the trial. The trial court then asked the public defender to review the charges with Bollinger, explain the amount of jail time he could receive for each charge, and go over the jury selection process with him. Bollinger admitted that this information had already been provided to
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