Criminal – Court didn’t err in allowing attorney to represent himself

Where an attorney charged with attempted extortion of a hospital insisted on representing himself at trial, and it didn’t go well, the appellate court rejected his argument that the district court should have revoked his pro se status.

Background

Stephen Snyder was charged with attempted extortion of a hospital and insisted on representing himself at trial. His performance was so poor and his relationship with the judge so contentious that he served a night in jail for contempt of court during the trial. The jury found him guilty.

Pro se

Snyder argues that the district court “erred in allowing [him] to proceed pro se, or alternatively, in failing to revoke his pro se status despite having knowledge of his cognitive impairment, short-term memory loss, and potential Parkinson’s diagnosis.” At oral argument before this court, however, Snyder’s appellate counsel began by conceding that he was competent to stand trial at every stage of the proceedings against him.

That concession is fatal to his appeal of this issue. As this court has already held, a defendant who is competent to stand trial is necessarily competent to waive his right to counsel. That is, “a defendant is competent to waive his right to counsel when he (1) has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding, and (2) he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.”

Here, the magistrate judge conducted two separate Faretta hearings: one in December 2023, and another just before trial in October 2024. Accordingly, the court discerns no clear error in the magistrate judge’s finding that Snyder was competent to represent himself at trial.

Snyder nevertheless argues that the district court should have sua sponte appointed him counsel against his will, replying upon Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008). But Edwards says what a court may do, not what it must do. As this court has explicitly held, “while a court may impose a ‘higher standard’ on a defendant before permitting him to waive counsel and proceed pro se, nothing requires a court to do so.”

That is for good reason, as there are practical concerns with the rule that a court must revoke a defendant’s self-representation rights if the court finds the defendant competent to stand trial and yet is on notice that the defendant will not be able to competently proceed pro se at trial.

Jury instruction

Snyder next argues that the district court erred in failing to give his proposed reliance-on-counsel instruction to the jury. To demonstrate a foundation for such an instruction, however, a defendant must “establish (a) full disclosure of all pertinent facts to an attorney, and (b) good faith reliance on the attorney’s advice.” Here, Snyder failed to lay a sufficient evidentiary foundation to establish that he had fully disclosed all pertinent facts to his ethics attorney.

Limitation

Snyder next argues that the district court erred when it limited the testimony at trial of Sanders’s wife, so that she would not violate the terms of the nondisclosure agreement she had signed to settle her husband’s medical malpractice suit. Any time Snyder asked Sanders about the circumstances that led to the death of her husband, she would respond, “I am not permitted to answer that question.”

To address the obvious oddity of those non-responses, the court itself intervened and informed the jury, “I think it’s important for you to know that Ms. Sanders signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of her settlement. These are routine. Ms. Sanders was trying not to violate the terms of that agreement.”

Without wading into the thicket of whether a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights are violated by a witness’s refusal to answer based on a non-disclosure agreement, this court affirms the district court’s handling of the agreement on the grounds that Snyder was not prejudiced by the partial exclusion of Sanders’s testimony.

Contempt

Finally, Snyder argues the district court erred in refusing to voir dire the jury to determine whether any juror had seen news reports of his contempt arrest during trial. However Snyder points to no evidence in the record to rebut “the presumption that jurors would properly observe the court’s admonitions to avoid or disregard media publicity about the case.”

Affirmed.

United States v. Snyder, Case No. 25-4218, July 14, 2026. 4th Cir. (Wynn), from DMD at Baltimore (Boardman). C. Justin Brown for Appellant. Mary Jessica Kirsch Munoz for Appellee. VLW 026-2-261. 24 pp.

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