Martians and the Mentally Ill Discussed at Arguments on Pro Se Right
A majority of the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appear to support the idea that judges can bar mentally ill defendants from representing themselves, even if they are deemed competent to stand trial, according to the Washington Post.
The Post wrote that Justice Antonin Scalia was a “notable and relentless exception” in “lively arguments yesterday that included the plight of the mentally ill, fantasies about Martians and no shortage of lawyer jokes.”
Indiana Solicitor General Thomas M. Fisher argued the trial judge had the right to bar a request to proceed pro se by defendant Ahmad Edwards, later convicted for stealing a pair of shoes and shooting at an unarmed securities guard. He said states have an interest in making sure that trials don’t end up “descending into a farce.” Edwards suffers from schizophrenia and was hospitalized twice before he was found competent to stand trial.
Fisher contends a 1993 Supreme Court ruling on competency to stand trial, Godinez v. Moran, allows the states to set a higher bar—but not a lower one—for competency for self-representation.
But Scalia disagreed with Indiana’s argument, also supported by the U.S. Solicitor General. Scalia said that if a defendant can be allowed to plead guilty, he should be permitted to make the less serious decision to represent himself, Legal Times reports. Scalia is the justice with the most expansive view of defendants’ rights under the Sixth Amendment, the New York Times points out in its coverage.
Instead of barring the defendant from representing himself before the trial begins, why not “wait to see whether he’s going to pull it off or not?” Scalia said.
Fisher proposed a test that would allow judges to bar defendants from representing themselves if they could not “communicate coherently” with a judge or jury, but some justices wondered if it was workable.
“Cannot communicate coherently?” Scalia said. “I sometimes think that the lawyers cannot communicate coherently.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., on the other hand, wondered about a situation where a defendant could quite clearly communicate to the jury that “Martians did it.”
