A Larimer County judge was wrong to ignore a set of claims a man raised on his own following his conviction, concluded the state’s Court of Appeals last week, ruling that judges cannot dismiss a self-represented defendant’s arguments simply because an appointed lawyer later chooses not to pursue those.

Jurors convicted Anthony Robert Smith in 2013 on several counts related to child sexual assault. Smith filed a motion in 2018 asserting that his trial lawyer was ineffective, that there was newly discovered evidence and that prosecutors committed misconduct. After the court appointed an attorney to assist with Smith’s postconviction motion for relief, the attorney filed a supplemental motion focusing on only a portion of Smith’s claims.

District Court Judge Gregory M. Lammons subsequently decided that, because Smith’s new lawyer had not engaged with the other claims in the supplemental motion, Smith had waived his ability to have Lammons look at them. Lammons rejected the remainder of the arguments Smith’s lawyer raised, leading Smith to appeal.

“We’re not allowed to just outright dismiss claims without the defendant being on board with that,” attorney Adrienne R. Teodorovic countered on behalf of Smith to the Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel for the appellate court acknowledged that Lammons could have denied Smith’s motion if it was clear that the claims were meritless and did not deserve relief. Moreover, Smith’s court-appointed attorney had no duty to advocate for meritless arguments.

However, it was not the case, wrote Judge Rebecca R. Freyre in the May 26 opinion, that Smith had forfeited his ability to have Lammons consider his original claims just because the appointed lawyer declined to pursue them.

There was no indication, Freyre explained, “that counsel considered Smith’s pro se claims to be meritless or that she sought (or received) Smith’s informed consent to waive any claims.”

Without expressing an opinion on the validity of Smith’s yet-to-be-heard claims, the panel returned the case to Lammons to review the arguments the judge previously ignored.

The case is People v. Smith.