A criminal defendant’s retort of “I would love to go pro se” did not reflect a definitive commitment to self-representation, the New York Court of Appeals held on Tuesday, over the strong dissent of one of its most outspoken justices.

The terse decision upheld an intermediate appellate court’s ruling that the defendant, Vladimir Duarte, did not make a “clear and unequivocal” request to represent himself when he engaged in a back-and-forth with a trial-court judge over the effectiveness of his court-appointed counsel.

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