People v. Kramer

THE COURT. By information filed by the district attorney, Thomas D. Kramer was charged in Count I with the crime of armed robbery and in Counts II to V, inclusive, with the crime of forgery in violation of section 470 of the Penal Code. Defendant was also charged with one prior offense, the crime of issuing a check without sufficient funds on or about April 17, 1958. Defendant pleaded not guilty and denied the prior conviction.

At the time of trial defendant’s attorney made a motion to be relieved upon the ground that he could no longer continue to represent defendant; he asserted defendant was insisting upon acting in his own behalf by such actions as filing independent petitions for writs of habeas corpus. The trial judge made every effort to have defendant either employ private counsel or if he did not have the funds with which to do so to accept an appointment by the court of the public defender. Defendant rejected these efforts and as the trial judge put it upon the hearing of the motion for a new trial, “we have here a young man who simply apparently enjoyed the drama of representing himself.” As the trial progressed and defendant found himself more and more hopelessly incapable of defending himself, he then requested counsel to be appointed to help him, which the court quite properly refused. The ease was tried to a jury and the jury found defendant guilty on all counts and fixed the degree of the robbery charged as robbery in the first degree.

On the motion for new trial the court again advised defendant that he should be represented by counsel and succeeded in inducing him to accept the appointment of the public defender. Even at this stage of the proceedings, however, defendant insisted on “directing” his attorney as to what should be said to the court in connection with the motion for new trial.

The trial court called attention of the public defender to the fact that the identification of defendant on the robbery count had not been positive, and upon that basis, and despite the strongly incriminating evidence which had been received against him, granted the motion for a new trial with respect to the charge of armed robbery. With respect to the four remaining counts of forgery and the finding of the prior conviction to be true, the judge declared the evidence to be overwhelming and stated that he saw no purpose in granting the motion for new trial as to these counts. At this point defend[50]ant discharged the public defender and asked permission to argue the motion for new trial which the court permitted.