Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in an Indiana case with wide ramifications for the states. The issue of the mentally ill representing themselves at trial was a central issue in the case of Scott Panetti in Texas. The SCOTUSwiki page for Indiana v. Edwards is here. Yesterday's oral argument transcript is here.
In the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse reports, "Court Looks at Legal Role for Mentally Ill."
A landmark Supreme Court decision 33 years ago gave criminal defendants the right to represent themselves at trial.
The right to proceed without a lawyer, the court said then, was a logical corollary to the Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. If the Constitution gave people the right to a lawyer, the justices reasoned, then it necessarily gave them to right to dispense with one, as well.
But what about a defendant who is mentally ill and who, although technically competent to stand trial, has come to the perhaps delusional conclusion that he is better off without a lawyer?
That was the question for the court during an argument on Wednesday. The court’s precedents suggest that the standards for competence to stand trial and competence to represent oneself are one and the same. But at least some justices appeared convinced that the issue required a fresh look.
The case is an appeal by the State of Indiana from a ruling by its State Supreme Court that a judge violated a defendant’s right to self-representation by refusing to let him proceed without a lawyer.
The defendant, Ahmad Edwards, was a schizophrenic who was originally deemed incompetent to stand trial on a charge of attempted murder. After two prolonged hospitalizations over nearly three years, Mr. Edwards was found competent to stand trial.
Represented by a court-imposed lawyer, he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The Indiana Supreme Court held that Mr. Edwards’s competency to stand trial meant that he was competent to represent himself. In its appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Indiana v. Edwards, No. 07-208, the state included in its brief excerpts some motions Mr. Edwards filed with the trial court that led the judge to conclude that he should not be permitted to represent himself.
Tony Mauro has, "Supreme Court Hears Case Involving Mentally Ill Defendants Representing Themselves,"
at Legal Times.
The Supreme Court struggled with that question Wednesday during an oral argument that weighed the Sixth Amendment right to self-representation against a state's interest in not having trials "descend into farce." Along the way, some lawyer jokes were also cracked.
The issue in the case Indiana v. Edwards is whether a state may impose a higher standard of competence for self-representation than the fairly minimal test for deciding if a defendant is competent to stand trial. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that Ahmad Edwards, diagnosed as a schizophrenic, was denied his right to represent himself at a 2005 trial for a department store robbery and shooting.
The trial judge had determined that while Edwards met the standard for competence to stand trial -- he understood the proceedings and could assist his lawyer -- he did not have the additional competence to represent himself.
Indiana, backed by the Justice Department, argue that in the interest of protecting both the reality and appearance of fairness and dignity of the courts, states should be allowed to set higher standards for self-representation.
"If the public sees the spectacle of a mentally ill defendant ... attempt to communicate to the jury on his own in a very delusional way, it really casts the justice system into disrepute," Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Michael Dreeben told the justices.
But Mark Stancil, the lawyer for Edwards, was just as adamant that a defendant declared competent to stand trial should be allowed to handle his or her defense.
Lyle Denniston has extensive analysis at SCOTUS Blog, " Analysis: Competency and the criminal trial." Here are two excerpts:
With Justice Antonin Scalia energetically and repeatedly making the case for a simple rule, the Supreme Court on Wednesday showed a reluctance to add a new layer of complexity to criminal trials when a person with a significant mental defect wants to act as his own defense lawyer. The core issue in Indiana v. Edwards (07-208) is whether states are constitutionally free to require that accused individuals have a higher level of mental capacity to represent themselves than is required for them simply to be put on trial with a lawyer at their side. As the lawyer for the state pressed for a two-level standard, most of the Court reacted with skepticism, first, about how to define a workable two-level test, and, second, about how that would complicate actual trials. Underlying much of the oral argument was a deep perplexity over how to conduct fair trials for persons with sub-standard mental capacity.
And:
The only member of the Court who openly expressed some sympathy for a clear-cut, two-level rule, with a higher level of compeency required for self-representation, was Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. He did so during questioning of Mark T. Stancil, the Washington, D.C., lawyer representing Ahman Edwards, the individual who won a right to represent himself on charges of murder and battery although he had a long history of a troubled mental state.
Roberts voiced some concern that, if there were not a two-level standard, the practical effect would be that, in order to avoid having a mentally defective individual representing himself, more judges would raise the standard for competency to stand trial so that fewer individuals with troubled mental conditions would simply not be put on trial at all. Stancil suggested that states should be left free to raise the competency standard, if that’s the way they opted to go to head off self-representation. The state, he added, should not also have the right to raise the self-representation standard, since “the state cannot cross to the other side of the courtroom and second guess the defendant’s decision” to self-represent.
Justice Breyer introduced some complexity into the discussion, suggesting that the Court define “a small class” of accused persons who are “disturbed” and who, because of that, can be expected to “do badly” if allowed to be their own lawyer. If those could be filtered out by a higher-level competency rule, Breyer said, “we’ve gone a long way to deal with a serious practical problem.” Stancil responded that trial judges have sufficient control over the conduct of their courtroom that they could “deal with trials that may descend into farce.”
"High Court Weighs Self-Representation ," is the headline of Robert Barnes report in the Washington Post.
It was six years after Ahmad Edwards was charged with firing a gun outside an Indianapolis department store that the delusional and schizophrenic man finally was found competent to stand trial. And when the day arrived, Edwards believed he should be his own attorney.
An Indiana judge said no.
In lively arguments yesterday that included the plight of the mentally ill, fantasies about Martians and no shortage of lawyer jokes, the Supreme Court considered whether that decision violated Edwards's right under the Sixth Amendment to represent himself at his trial.
The Post also has a sidebar, "The Joke's on Who?"
Mark Sherman filed, "Court Hears Mentally Ill Defendent Case," for AP, via Google News.
The high court recently saw an aspect of this dilemma in the case of Scott Panetti, a mentally ill killer from Texas who was nonetheless judged competent to stand trial and allowed to represent himself.
Panetti was convicted and sentenced to death after personally arguing that only an insane person could prove the insanity defense. He dressed in cowboy clothing and submitted an initial witness list that included Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.
The court blocked his execution in June, in a ruling that did not address his role in his own defense.
In USA Today, Joan Biskupic reports, "Justices seem open to limit defendant rights."
Supreme Court justices appeared open Wednesday to arguments that a mentally ill defendant who is sufficiently competent to stand trial could be denied his right to represent himself so the trial does not become a spectacle.
"It's a practical matter," Justice Anthony Kennedy said. "We know what goes on, and what goes on is very costly to the state and to the fairness of the trial." He referred to some defendants' inability to communicate with others in the courtroom as "two ships passing in the night, or in the case of some defendants, about five ships passing in the night."
The Indianapolis Star's Maureen Groppe writes, "Court hears Ind. self-representation case."
The Justice Department and 19 other states sided with Indiana in arguing that the high court should give trial courts the option of setting higher standards for self-representation for certain defendants.
“It’s a matter of having someone who can actually formulate a coherent defense and communicate that to the court and to the jury,” said Thomas M. Fisher, Indiana’s solicitor general who argued the case before the court. “There’s a world of difference between a lack of legal knowledge and the inability to relay a kind of coherent message that any person, lawyer or not, of ordinary kind of mental ability, capacity, would be able to formulate.”
U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, who shared Indiana’s argument time, said the relatively low standard for determining whether defendants are competent to stand trial doesn’t address whether they can carry out the necessary tasks of self-representation.
A ruling is expected by the end of the Court's term in late June.
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