Michael Washington v. Florida Department of Transportation

This Court has held that a waiver of constitutional rights must be knowing and intelligent. Specifically, “[w]aiver is different from forfeiture. Whereas forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right, waiver is the ‘intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.’” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 (1993) (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938)). Additionally, in Johnson v. Zerbst, the Court opined that! it is a duty of trial court to protect the right of the accused to counsel, and, if he has no counsel, to determine whether he has intelligently and competently waived the rig|ht. If the accused is not represented by counsel and has not competently and intelligently waived his constitutional right, the Sixth Amendment stands as a jurisdictional bar to a valid conviction and sentence depriving him of his life or his liberty. P. 468. 5.