District court’s disqualification of defendant’s retained counsel from representing him in a prosecution for conspiracy to distribute cocaine because the attorney was also representing an alleged co-conspirator in sentencing proceedings is reversed and remanded for retrial as the district court’s disqualification order violated defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to choose his own counsel, and, under Gonzalez-Lopez, this constitutional violation is a structural error not subject to review for harmlessness.
Read US v. Turner, No. 08-2350
Appellate Information
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois
Decided February 2, 2010
Judges
Before: Easterbrook. Chief Judge, and Sykes, and Kendall, District Judge
Opinion by Circuit Judge Sykes
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