Supreme Court of the United States, 1966

Westbrook v. Arizona

Supreme Court of the United States · Decided May 2, 1966 · Per Curiam

384 U.S. 150; 86 S. Ct. 1320; 16 L. Ed. 2d 429; 1966 U.S. LEXIS 1720 (United States Reports)

Counsel

W. Edward, Morgan for petitioner., Darrell F. Smith, Attorney General of Arizona, and Paul G. Rosenblatt, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.

Cases that cite this one

174 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.

Godinez v. Moran (Supreme Court of the United States 1993)
State v. Cooley (Iowa 2000)
Guenter H. Schoeller v. Walter Dunbar, Director, California Department of Corrections (9th Cir. 1970)
United States v. Willie Earl Clark (7th Cir. 1992)
People v. Matheson (Mich. Ct. App. 1976)
State v. Jones (Wash. 1983)
State v. Beasley (Neb. 1969)
State v. Martin (Ariz. 1967)
Coronado v. Lefevre (District Court, S.D. New York 1990)
People v. Hightower (Cal. Ct. App. 1996)
State v. Cornell (Ariz. 1994)
Mann v. State's Attorney for Montgomery County (Md. 1983)
Gilbert F. Sieling, Sr. v. Frank A. Eyman, Warden, Arizona State Prison (9th Cir. 1973)
Commonwealth v. Banks (Pa. 1987)
State v. Cameron (Ariz. Ct. App. 1985)
Willis v. United States (D.C. 1983)
State v. Fuchs (Idaho 1979)
State v. Contreras (Ariz. 1975)
State v. Byrd (Ariz. Ct. App. 1974)
Edwards v. State (Ind. 2007)
Wilkins v. Bowersox (District Court, W.D. Missouri 1996)
People v. Burnett (Cal. Ct. App. 1987)
Ford v. State (Ala. Crim. App. 1986)
People v. Zatko (Cal. Ct. App. 1978)
People v. Heral (Ill. 1976)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion

Per Curiam.

The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. Although petitioner received a hearing on the issue of his competence to stand trial, there appears to have been no hearing or inquiry into the issue of his competence to waive his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel and proceed, as he did, to conduct his own defense. “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.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 465; Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 506.

*151 From an independent examination of the record, we conclude that the question whether this “protecting duty” was fulfilled should be re-examined in light of our decision this Term in Pate v. Robinson, 383 U. S. 375. Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Arizona is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for proceedings not inconsistent herewith.

It is so ordered.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.