Laurell Wells v. United States

A defendant in a criminal case is entitled to conflict-free counsel. Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 162-63 (1988). In the Second Circuit, the test for whether a criminal defendant can waive his defense lawyer’s conflict is whether “the conflict is of such a serious nature that no rational defendant would knowingly and intelligently desire that attorney’s representation.” United States v. Schwarz, 283 F.3d 76, 95 (2d Cir. 2002). The Fifth Circuit, by contrast, rejects waivers in cases where a conflict “is so severe as to render a trial inherently unfair [such that] the integrity of the judicial system has been undermined.” United States v. Vaquero, 997 F.2d 78, 90 (5th Cir. 1993). The question for this Court is which test should apply in a case where the defendant’s lawyer labors under an ethical conflict (in this case, the lawyer simultaneously represented the corporate victim of the crime on lucrative unrelated matters): one that focuses on the perspective of a hypothetical rational defendant or one that focuses on system integrity?