Supreme Court Rules Against Schizophrenic Who Wanted to Represent Himself

U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court Rules Against Schizophrenic Who Wanted to Represent Himself

Posted Jun 19, 2008, 08:58 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges can bar mentally ill inmates from representing themselves at trial, even if they are deemed competent to stand trial.

The court ruled 7-2 in the case of Ahmad Edwards, who was not allowed to represent himself on charges that he stole a pair of shoes and shot at an unarmed security guard. He was later convicted of the charges. Edwards suffers from schizophrenia.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in his majority opinion (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) that the Sixth Amendment right of self-representation is not absolute. He said a single standard should not be used to evaluate competence to stand trial and competence to represent oneself since the latter calls for an expanded role for the defendant.

Self-representation by a defendant with mental problems can result in an improper conviction or sentencing, undercutting the Constitution’s objective of providing a fair trial, he wrote.

Nor does self-representation “affirm the dignity” of the defendant, Breyer said. “To the contrary, given that defendant’s uncertain mental state, the spectacle that could well result from his self-representation at trial is at least as likely to prove humiliating as ennobling.”

The opinion is Indiana v. Edwards.

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Posted by KYJurisDoctor - 5 months, 1 week, 6 days, 4 hours, 8 minutes ago

The ruling makes absolutely PERFECT sense!
Posted by Harold A. Maio, a letter for editors - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 19 hours, 44 minutes ago

Supreme Court Rules Against Schizophrenic Who Wanted to Represent Himself

Your headline is offensive.

Harold A. Maio
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Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal
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of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities
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Posted by NB - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 16 hours, 50 minutes ago

The headline is unimportant. It is the content of the decision that is appalling. Never in my life did I expect to find myself applauding an opinion written by Scalia, but for the first time I am cheering the logic of his dissent. Now at a whiim a judge can strip anyone of his right to represent himself so long as he can find a corrupt psychologist willing to accuse that person of mental illness for the right price. The Supreme Court should not have been considering just one undisputed schizophrenic but the rights of all of us, and it failed to do so.
Posted by NB - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes ago

I wish to add that this is one more tool in the wrong hands to extort pleas from innocent people. One of the best ways to extort a plea is to make sure the defendant understands clearly he will receive no real defense, and a harsher sentence after he is convicted in a show trial. Judges who could pressure a defendant to plead by looking the other way at a public defender’s negligence and refusing to replace him can now also help by threatening a defendant to deny him even the right to defend himself. Wiith no standards for the decision, it is open season on innocent people whose exoneration would be an embarrassment and potential liability.
Posted by NB - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 16 hours, 32 minutes ago

It should not go unnoticed that in the majority opinion, the court states with approval “ The American Psychiatric Association (APA) tells us
(without dispute) in its amicus brief filed insupport of neither party that “[d]isorganized thinking, deficits in sustaining attention and concentration, impaired expressive
abilities, anxiety, and other common symptoms of severe mental illnesses can impair the defendant’s ability to play the significantly expanded role required for selfrepresentation
even if he can play the lesser role of represented defendant.” Brief for APA et al. as Amici Curiae 26.“ So the next people who can kiss their right to self-representation good bye are all the people who are not mentally ill, but have any of the above naturally occurring traits. This case is not about schizophrenics; it just used a schizophrenic to attack our civil rights.
Posted by NB - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 16 hours, 23 minutes ago

When the court is done checking out a defendant’s personal qualities to see if he deserves the right to defend himself, the court can then go on to think about why lack of education or legal experience, low IQ, poverty, or any of a variety of physical disabilities which also “can impair the defendant’s ability to play the significantly expanded role required for self-representation” should be treated any differently.
Posted by NB - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes ago

Finally, the most important sentences in the Court’s opinion—and the ones which prove the Court is wrong—are:

We recognize that judges have sometimes expressed concern that Faretta,contrary to its intent, has led to trials that are unfair. See Martinez, supra, at 164
(BREYER, J., concurring) (noting practical concerns of trial judges). But recent empirical research suggests that such instances are not common. See, e.g., Hashimoto, Defending
the Right of Self-Representation: An Empirical Look at the Pro Se Felony Defendant, 85 N. C. L. Rev. 423, 427,447, 428 (2007) (noting that of the small number of defendants who chose to proceed pro se—“roughly 0.3% to 0.5%”
of the total, state felony defendants in particular “appear to have achieved higher felony acquittal rates than their represented counterparts in that they were less likely to have been convicted of felonies”)

It is unfortunate the courts and the state bars do not pay more attention to public defenders who lack the capacity or the will to provide an active and competent defense, or the courage to limit their caseload to a number that matches the resources provided. If they did so, the issue of self-representation would rarely arise. Most hand wringing over defendants representing themselves is about the frustration courts experience in facing a litigant who is not on the team.
Posted by Kevin - 5 months, 1 week, 5 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes ago

Headline = funny.

Decision = not so much.

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