6th Amendment

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence"

“…Last month, Stewart, a 42-year-old high school dropout, defended himself in a murder case in Prince George's County, where he was accused of beating a sleeping man to death with a baseball bat. The trial lasted three days. Stewart called no witnesses. The jury deliberated less than an hour. The verdict: Not guilty of first-degree murder. Not guilty of second-degree murder. ‘Everybody told me I was crazy to represent myself,’ Stewart said in an interview. ‘I had no choice. They were obstructing my rights.’ The obstructionists, in Stewart's view, included county prosecutors, the trial judge, the assistant public defender who represented him at his first trial (which ended in a mistrial), the private defense lawyer who represented him between the two trials, jail officials he says unfairly denied him access to the law library and the state Attorney Grievance Commission. Victories such as Stewart's are exceedingly rare. Veteran attorneys in suburban Maryland and the District said they had never heard of a pro se defendant -- a term that draws on the Latin phrase meaning ‘on one's own behalf’ -- winning an acquittal in a murder case.”

Harold J. Stewart a high school drop-out, unmarried, 4 time father, and Maryland native was arrested in 2005 on counts of first and second degree murder. His first attorney Assistant Public Defender Janet Callis won him a mistrial on the bases that one of the jurors (an Asian woman) didn’t speak enough English to get their argument. That won him a mistrial. Stewart's family hired lawyer David M. Simpson to represent him after the mistrial. Simpson instantly told him to go for a second degree pleas bargain, but he refused. He then came up with the idea to represent himself. Be begun to gather court files that were about 5 inches thick each. On the day of his trail his sister, who told an earlier testimony that he confessed to her about the murder, rephrase her testimony to say that he merely spoke that some might be hurt. He also criticized Kevin Green, (Stewart’s housemate) testimony that they had been drinking and he witnessed the murder and went for help even though a ambulance didn’t show up at the scene of the crime hours later. With only an hour to deliberate the jurors acquitted him of both crimes.

This not only displays the use of having a legal attorney but the right to a public and speedy trail. Harold Steward not only took the law into his hands when all odds were against him, but won a case that if he lost would earn him a minimum of 40 years if convicted of both counts. He used his resources and environment to win his case.

I believe that Harold made a very foolish choice to represent himself. It was documented that her used. “…long soliloquies, citing criminal codes without making a clear point…” A lot of lawyers said that self defending is common with trials of DUI’s or traffic violations but nothing of that stature. Legal counsels are there for a reason and it was only by pure luck that he won his trail. Many others’s have tried this and found themselves in jail. No matter how foolish his decision he did get himself acquitted and he did put his 6th amendment right to use.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/16/AR2008031603010.html