United States v. William Stewart McDowell

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the failure to give a prophylactic warning or conduct a particular inquiry alone does not require reversal if the record indicates that the defendant had the requisite knowledge
• stating that judge's duty is to ensure that the right to represent oneself \be asserted by the accused with his 'eyes open'\
• recognizing “that the degree of competency required to waive counsel is ‘vaguely higher’ than the competency required to stand trial”
• requiring that district courts use the model inquiry or “one covering the same substantive points” on the record to determine whether a defendant’s waiver is knowing and intelligent
• adopting the procedure laid out in the Bench Book as a model inquiry to be undertaken by trial judges
• reprinting model questions to pose to a criminal defendant who wants to proceed pro se from the Bench Book for United States District Judges 1.02-2 to -5 (3d ed. 1986)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).