Notes
- S v Tandwa and Others 2008 (1) SACR 613 (SCA)
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In S v Tandwa (2007), the seven appellants were convicted of a bank robbery and appealed this. The allegation was that it was an "inside job," as Tandwa was an employee of the bank. It looked like Tandwa was a victim, but he was actually working with the bank robbers.
The first appellant also contended that his right to a fair trial had been violated in that his counsel had been incompetent, had given him bad advice, and had conducted himself obstructively. In particular, he claimed that he had not been properly informed about the consequences of not testifying, and that his counsel had misled him on the legal position in this regard.
The court held that the right to legal representation meant a right to representation that was competent and of a quality and nature that ensured that the trial was indeed fair.
It also followed that an accused had the right to represent himself, and if the unwanted or inept advice of counsel unfairly thwarted the exercise of that right, the accused's right to a fair trial would have been infringed.
The court held that the evidence in favour of the State was very strong and the accused's allegations were so weak, contradictory and inherently improbable that they could be rejected on affidavit without further enquiry.
Furthermore, it was held that it was inherently improbable that a well-educated accused with experience of testifying in previous proceedings would not either insist on testifying, as previously agreed, or complain at the first opportunity about having been unjustly thwarted in his wish to do so
Therefore, the appeals were dismissed.
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The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by imposing those requirements upon the states as well.
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Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), was a landmark Supreme Court case that established the standard for determining when a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated by that counsel's inadequate performance.
Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the standard for competency to stand trial was not linked to the standard for competency to represent oneself.
Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, 528 U.S. 152 (2000), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided an appellant who was the defendant in a criminal case cannot refuse the assistance of counsel on direct appeals. This case is in contrast to Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), which grants criminal defendants the right to refuse counsel for trial purposes.
North v. Russell, 427 U.S. 328 (1976), is a United States Supreme Court case which held that a non-lawyer jurist can constitutionally sit in a jail-carrying criminal case provided that the defendant has an opportunity through an appeal to obtain a second trial before a judge who is a lawyer.
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