Shawn Ian Lainfiesta v. Christopher Artuz, Superintendent, Greenhaven Corr. Facility Elliot Spitzer, Attorney General

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge:

One must guard not to take too much lesson from an unpleasant historical event. A cat who sits on a hot stove lid will never sit on one again. But it will not sit on a cold lid either. On this appeal we review the decision of a trial judge who, in his zeal to avoid the spectacle of the O.J. Simpson trial, ruled that a defendant in a criminal case had to settle on just one of his lawyers to examine all the witnesses. Although so stringent a limitation of the right to counsel violated the defendant’s rights under the Sixth Amendment, we conclude that, in this case, the…