Traditionally, trial courts have been given broad discretion to determine whether a conflict of interest warrants disqualification of defense counsel in a criminal case. The resolution of conflict issues requires a court carefully to balance a defendant’s right to counsel of his own choosing against the defendant’s right to be represented by conflict-free counsel.
This process may have become more complicated as a result of the Supreme Court’s June 2006 ruling in United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 1 which reversed a criminal conviction after the district court was found to have wrongly prevented an out-of-state attorney from representing the defendant at trial.
