Napoleon Momon, Appellant v. State of Tennessee, Appellee

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant's right to testify is a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed by Article I, section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and that because the right is fundamental and personal it must be personally waived by the defendant. Trial counsel's unilateral decision not to call Momon to testify at his retrial, made without consulting him, deprived him of that right, but the court declined to decide whether counsel was also ineffective under the Sixth Amendment. The court classified denial of the right to testify as 'trial error' subject to harmless error analysis rather than a structural defect, and because the record lacked Momon's first-trial testimony and any offer of proof, it remanded for a hearing at which the State must prove the violation harmless beyond a reasonable doubt or the conviction must be vacated. On rehearing, the court denied the appellant's challenge to the harmless error holding but granted the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' petition, adding a written-waiver alternative executed no earlier than the close of the prosecution's case-in-chief. Justice Barker, concurring in part and dissenting in part and joined by Justice Birch, would have held that unilateral deprivation of the right to testify defies harmless error analysis and requires automatic reversal.