A client who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer. And fools are, by their very description, entitled to make foolish decisions. As those in the legal profession know well, just because a client makes a foolish decision, it doesn’t mean that he’s incompetent. Well, not always anyway.

So recognized the Ninth Circuit in a recent decision in United States v. Johnson. The defendants were tried on a bunch of boring fraud type stuff and they represented themselves, putting for a defense that was gibberish. No, that’s not my characterization, it’s the Ninth Circuit’s:

Defendants Kurt F. Johnson and Dale Scott Heineman were indicted for conspiracy and multiple counts of mail fraud related to their illegitimate  debt-elimination business. They were adamant in their desire to represent themselves and assert an absurd legal theory wrapped up in Uniform  Commercial Code gibberish.

It always tickles me to read words like “gibberish” in appellate opinions.

The district court found that the defendants were competent to represent themselves and that such was their constitutional right. Defendants now contend that Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008), decided by the Supreme Court after their trial concluded, required the district court to terminate their  self-representation because of what they describe as their “nonsensical” legal “antics” after the trial began. They say they may have been competent to stand trial but not to represent themselves. The record clearly shows that the defendants are fools, but that is not the same as being incompetent. Under both Faretta and Edwards, they had the right to represent themselves and go down in flames if they wished, a right the district court was required to  respect.

It is a pity that the court does not recite the various nonsensical pleadings and antics undertaken by the defendants. The case does make an interesting read for several reasons, though. It highlights the difference between Faretta and Edwards and also Illinois v. Allen, ultimately holding that the defendants did nothing to disrupt the trial, were not incompetent and were merely foolish.

But here’s what intrigues me: during the course of the Faretta hearings conducted by the district court and in reaching its conclusion that the defendants were competent to represent themselves, the court relied on the expert testimony of a psychiatrist who evaluated both defendants:

Because the defendants were considering representing themselves and because they had made some strange comments in court, the district judge ordered that the defendants undergo mental examinations. James R. Missett, M.D., Ph.D., evaluated the defendants separately at the Federal Corrections Institute in  Dublin, California. Both defendants were less than cooperative during their evaluations, but Dr. Missett engaged them for approximately one hour each and  filed written reports in which he opined that neither defendant was suffering from any mental disorder. The court held a competency hearing at which Dr.  Missett testified in person. The court found the defendants competent to represent themselves based on Dr. Missett’s reports and testimony and based on  the court’s own observations.

I wasn’t there. I’m not in the defendant’s head (but I may be a figment of your imagination) and they very well may believe in this “absurd legal theory”, but spending an hour with uncooperative subjects doesn’t seem enough to reach a conclusion about the absence of any psychiatric disability. But what do I know, I’m just a lawyer. On the other hand, one might argue that if you’re a lawyer, you can’t be entirely sane.

No matter the relative levels of sanity, the fact remains that a trial is damn hard work and there a thousand small things that need to be paid attention to before you even get to the testimony itself. Lawyers are trained in this; laypersons are not.

So to those of you non-lawyers reading this, or who might be searching for the phrase “should I hire a lawyer or should I represent myself?”, take heed. You may be sane, you may be competent, but in the end, you’ll probably get convicted without counsel and then appeal and lose and regret it and then end up in a blog post here.

HT

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