The parties spend a great deal of time disputing how this Court's precedents of Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475 (1978), Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335 (1980), and Wood v. Georgia, 450 U.S. 261 (1981), resolve the case. A rule that allows the State to foist a murder victim's lawyer onto his accused is not only capricious; it poisons the integrity of our adversary system of justice. and other data for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, Those precedents involve the significance of a trial judge's "failure to inquire" if that judge "knew or should have known" of a "potential" conflict. 446 U.S., at 347-350. It should go without saying that the best time to deal with a known threat to the basic guarantee of fair trial is before the trial has proceeded to become unfair. As used in the remand instruction, "an actual conflict of interest" meant precisely a conflict that affected counsel's performance--as opposed to a mere theoretical division of loyalties. 1979, No. In Cronic, we cited Holloway as an example of a case involving "surrounding circumstances [making] it so unlikely that any lawyer could provide effective assistance that ineffectiveness was properly presumed without inquiry into actual performance at trial." In Sullivan we did not ask only whether an objection was made in order to ascertain whether the trial court had a duty to inquire. Id., at 390. Saunders did not disclose to the court, his co-counsel, or petitioner that he had previously represented Hall. Saunders' failure to attack the character of the 17-year-old victim and his mother had nothing to do with the putative conflict of interest. The fines were so high that the original sentencing assumption must have been that the store and theater owner would pay them; defense counsel was paid by the employer, at least during the trial; the State pointed out a possible conflict to the judge;5 and counsel was attacking the fines with an equal protection argument, which weakened the strategy more obviously in the defendants' interest, of requesting the court to reduce the fines or defer their collection. Rule Crim. Id., at 614. Contrary to the majority's conclusion, see ante, at 6-7, n.2, there was no tension at all between acknowledging the rule of reversal to be applied when a judge fails to enquire into a known risk of prospective conflict, Wood, 450 U.S., at 272, n.18, while at the same time sending the Wood case itself back for a determination about actual, past conflict, id., at 273-274. In Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335 (1980), the respondent was one of three defendants accused of murder who were tried separately, represented by the same counsel. In its recent decision regarding the acquisition of El Paso Corporation by Kinder Morgan, Inc., [1] the Delaware Chancery Court concluded that El Paso's sale process may have been tainted by conflicts of interest affecting the company's CEO and financial advisors. This is not what happened. As the Sixth Amendment guarantees the defendant the assistance of counsel, the infringement of that right must depend on a deficiency of the lawyer, not of the trial judge. Pp. 1979, No. 4.2.3 Episode Three: Three Solid Cases of Conflict Interest in the Department of Education 200-222 U nive rsity of P re toria e td - K a ny a ne , M H (2 0 0 6 ) vi 4.2.4 Episode Four: The Implementation of Hospital Information System (HIS) in the Limpopo Province, Department of Health and Welfare, for R116 million 222-229 . In the one case in which we have devised a remedy for such judicial dereliction, we held that the ensuing judgment of conviction must be reversed and the defendant afforded a new trial. Engaging in nepotism: Mixing personal relationships with professional ones can easily add up to conflicts of interest. A to Brief in Opposition in Wood v. Georgia, O.T. A defendant might, first, point to facts indicating that a judge knew or should have known of a "`particular conflict,'" Wood, 450 U.S., at 272, n.18 (quoting Cuyler, 446 U.S., at 347), before that risk had a chance to play itself out with an adverse result. See also, ABA Ann. 435 U.S., at 490-492. He had a duty to protect the reputation and confidences of his deceased client, and a duty to impeach the impact evidence presented by the prosecutor.4, Saunders' conflicting obligations to his deceased client, on the one hand, and to his living client, on the other, were unquestionably sufficient to give Mickens the right to insist on different representation.5 For the "right to counsel guaranteed by the Constitution contemplates the services of an attorney devoted solely to the interests of his client," Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 725 (1948).6 Moreover, in my judgment, the right to conflict-free counsel is just as firmly protected by the Constitution as the defendant's right of self-representation recognized in Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975).7. 1999). Kennedy, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which O'Connor, J., joined. The judge's duty independent of objection, as described in Cuyler and Wood, is made concrete by reversal for failure to honor it. WALTER MICKENS, Jr., PETITIONER v.JOHN TAYLOR, WARDEN, on writ of certiorari to the united states court ofappeals for the fourth circuit. 240 F.3d 348, 357 (CA4 2001). 58-59. Id., at 356-357. As Justice White pointed out, absent relevant evidence in the record, it was reasonable that the employer might have refused to pay because the defendants were no longer employees, or because it no longer owned adult establishments. See Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, 165 (1986) ("[B]reach of an ethical standard does not necessarily make out a denial of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of assistance of counsel"). Sheldon Krimsky, Leader in Science Policy and Ethics, Dies at 80. FindLaw.com Free, trusted legal information for consumers and legal professionals, SuperLawyers.com Directory of U.S. attorneys with the exclusive Super Lawyers rating, Abogado.com The #1 Spanish-language legal website for consumers, LawInfo.com Nationwide attorney directory and legal consumer resources. Neither counsel nor anyone else objected to the multiple representation, and counsel's opening argument at Sullivan's trial suggested that the interests of the defendants were aligned. Since the majority will not leave the law as it is, however, the question is whether there is any merit in the rule it now adopts, of treating breaches of a judge's duty to enquire into prospective conflicts differently depending on whether defense counsel explicitly objected. " Id., at 272, and n.20. Yet even with extensive investigation in post-trial proceedings, it will often prove difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the prior representation affected defense counsel's decisions regarding, for example: which avenues to take when investigating the victim's background; which witnesses to call; what type of impeachment to undertake; which arguments to make to the jury; what language to use to characterize the victim; and, as a general matter, what basic strategy to adopt at the sentencing stage. order now. Sullivan was convicted of murder; the other two were acquitted in their subsequent trials. Moreover, the possibility that counsel was actively representing the conflicting interests of employer and defendants "was sufficiently apparent at the time of the revocation hearing to impose upon the court a duty to inquire further." analyse how our Sites are used. 211-213; see also id., at 219. The declaration made in year 2007 are all. But this Court in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 693-694 (1984), held that a specific "outcome-determinative standard" is "not quite appropriate" and spoke instead of the Sixth Amendment right as one against assistance of counsel that "undermines the reliability of the result of the proceeding," id., at 693, or "confidence in the outcome," id., at 694. The fallacy of the Government's argument, however, has been on the books since Wood was decided. Mickens' lawyer's violation of this fundamental obligation of disclosure is indefensible. The law on conflicted counsel has to face the fact that one of our leading cases arose after a trial in which counsel may well have kept silent about conflicts not out of obtuseness or inattention, but for the sake of deliberately favoring a third party's interest over the clients, and this very case comes to us with reason to suspect that Saunders suppressed his conflicts for the sake of a second fee in a case getting public attention. Since, in the Court's view, counsel's emphasis on the equal protection claim was one of the facts that together put the judge on notice of something amiss, and since the record shows that it was not clear that counsel was favoring the equal protection argument until, at the earliest, the very close of the revocation hearing, and more likely the day he filed his motion two weeks later, the Court could only have meant that the judge was put on notice of a conflict that may actually have occurred, not of a potential conflict that might occur later.7 At that point, as the Court saw it, there were only two further facts the judge would have needed to know to determine whether there had been an actual disqualifying conflict, and those were whether a concern for the interest of the employer had weakened the lawyer's arguments for leniency, and whether the defendants had been informed of the conflict and waived their rights to unconflicted counsel. In dicta, the Court states that Sullivan may not even apply in the first place to successive representations. The term "conflict of interest" in the legal world refers to a situation wherein an individual is in a position to exploit his professional capacity for his own benefit. and Supp. 79-6027, at72 (transcript of Jan. 26, 1979, probation revocation hearing).6 The Wood Court also knew that a motion stressing equal protection was not filed by defense counsel until two weeks after the revocation hearing, on the day before probation was to be revoked and the defendants locked up, App. Without an objection, the majority holds, Mickens should get no relief absent a showing that the risk turned into an actual conflict with adverse effect on the representation provided to Mickens at trial. Pp. If it were otherwise, the judge's duty would not be limited to cases where the attorney is suspected of harboring a conflict of interest. This could affect the way our company is perceived by others. As we have explained earlier, n.3, supra, this dictum simply contradicts the remand order in Wood. The District Court said the same for counsel's alleged dereliction at the sentencing phase. The first step toward seeing where the majority goes wrong is to recall that the Court in Wood said outright what I quoted before, that Cuyler "mandates a reversal when the trial court has failed to make an inquiry even though it `knows or reasonably should know that a particular conflict exists.' 17,733) (CC Me. By "particular conflict" the Court was clearly referring to a risk of conflict detectable on the horizon rather than an "actual conflict" that had already adversely affected the defendant's representation. Id., at 488. Id., at 478-480. On March 23, 1978, defendants appeared for arraignment and the case was continued to the following day for the appointment of counsel and an interpreter. The Commonwealth complains that this argument "relies heavily on the immediate visceral impact of learning that a lawyer previously represented the victim of his current client." Reputational damage can occur when an actor such as a whistleblower, journalist or other interested third party makes public comments on a conflict of interest. See, e.g., United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. ___, ___ (2002) (slip op., at 17) (error in judge's Rule 11 plea colloquy). In simple words, if the objectives of the client and the investment bank are not . ." But when the problem of conflict comes to judicial attention not prospectively, but only after the fact, the defendant must show an actual conflict with adverse consequence to him in order to get relief. Although the District Court concluded that Saunders probably did learn some matters that were confidential, it found that nothing the attorney learned was relevant to the subsequent murder case. This Court, of course, was in no position to resolve these remaining issues in the first instance. Alex Murdaugh's former law partner said Tuesday that he is past his anger over millions of dollars stolen from the firm, as the final witnesses in the South Carolina . Wood was not like Holloway, in which the judge was put on notice of a risk before trial, that is, a prospective possibility of conflict. University Publications of America, National Reporter on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Vols. Thus, the Sullivan standard is not properly read as requiring inquiry into actual conflict as something separate and apart from adverse effect. Proc. Before trial, Saunders admittedly failed even to discuss with Mickens a trial strategy of reasonable doubt about the forcible sex element, without which death was not a sentencing option. 450 U.S., at 262-263. 2d, at 613-615. 119, 125-140 (1978); Lowenthal, Joint Representation in Criminal Cases: A Critical Appraisal, 64 Va. L.Rev. Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. MICKENS v. TAYLOR, WARDEN (2002) No. Ante, at 10. An unwanted counsel `represents' the defendant only through a tenuous and unacceptable legal fiction. Id., at 273. This case comes to us with the finding that the judge who appointed Saunders knew or should have known of the risk that he would be conflicted owing to his prior appointment to represent the victim of the crime, 74 F.Supp. No man can be supposed to be indifferent to the knowledge of facts, which work directly on his interests, or bear on the freedom of his choice of counsel. See 74 F.Supp. The Fourth Circuit having found no such effect, the denial of habeas relief must be affirmed. A judge who knows or should know that counsel for a criminal defendant facing, or engaged in, trial has a potential conflict of interests is obliged to enquire into the potential conflict and assess its threat to the fairness of the proceeding. 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