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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Ind. Courts - "Defending yourself in criminal case? Not so fast"

That is the headline of this important story this morning in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, reported by Rebecca S. Green. Some quotes [emphasis added by ILB]:

Under the U.S. Constitution, criminal defendants not only have the right to an attorney, they also have a right to no attorney if that is what they want.

While it’s not common, defendants in minor criminal cases or traffic court occasionally represent themselves, with varying degrees of success.

But in two recent serious and complicated criminal cases, defendants tried to represent themselves over the loud objections of prosecutors and others who thought self-representation would rob the defendants of the right to adequate representation – in effect, preventing them from getting a fair trial.

In one case, accused murderer Delmas Sexton’s request to represent himself was denied by Special Judge Thomas Hakes.

In the other, accused rapist Brian Mast – whose 1989 convictions for rape, criminal deviate conduct, battery and burglary were overturned by the state’s highest court – was on the verge of being allowed to serve as his own counsel when he changed course mid-hearing. Mast now plans to have a public defender serve as his attorney.

Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards, who is handling the case against Mast, said defendants who choose to represent themselves, or “go pro se,” make it difficult to guarantee a fair trial.

“They don’t do themselves any legal favors,” she said. “It doesn’t happen very often. … Most defendants are smart enough to know it’s not a good idea.”

The appellate courts hold defendants to the same legal standards as any attorney, even though they lack formal training and may even have low IQs or suffer from mental illness.

“That’s why it is so foolish for people to represent themselves,” Richards said.

Judges often appoint an attorney – sometimes the one first appointed to the defendant as a public defender – as standby counsel, there to give advice and process documents if the defendant is behind bars. But they do not intervene. * * *

Richards believes state and federal case law allows judges to deny defendants’ requests to represent themselves if the judge finds they have inadequate knowledge of the legal system or have vacillated on their decision to defend themselves.

ILB: Related is the Indiana case of Ahmad Edwards v. State, which has been to the SCOTUS and back, involving the issue of whether "a trial court may deny a defendant’s request to act pro se when the defendant is mentally competent to stand trial but suffers from severe mental illness to the point where he is not competent to conduct trial proceedings by himself." See this March 17, 2009 ILB entry and its links.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 21, 2010 12:25 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts