People v. Brzowski

(Court opinion corrected 6/2/15.) Defendant was charged with two counts of unlawful violations of order of protection for sending mail to his two sons, and later charged with two more counts for sending mail to his ex-wife. Defendant was denied his right to counsel at both trials. Court excused Defendant's standby counsel prior to jury deliberations, a critical stage in trial, which was prejudicial and abuse of discretion. Court denied Defendant his right to have counsel appointed in telling Defendant that he could not proceed with his current assistant public defender (despite public defender's office having indicated that it had no objection to Defendant being represented by his same assistant public defender), but could only proceed pro se, hire a new attorney or convince his attorney to provide him pro bono representation. (McDADE and WRIGHT, concurring.)