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Degrees of Mental Competence

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Today's Supreme Court opinion in Indiana v. Edwards is available on the Court's website. The case deals with the issue of the marginally competent defendant who is mentally able to stand trial but not to represent himself, yet he insists he wants to do just that, invoking the 1975 decision in Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806. Today's decision recognizes that the Faretta right is not absolute. The "consensus" on which it was based was formed by cases that recognized there were limits, and that mental competence is one of those limits. See slip op. 9-10, CJLF Brief 7-14. The decision appears to provide for leeway for states to set their own standards. Godinez involved a State that sought to permit a gray-area defendant to represent himself...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on June 19, 2008 (boomark / email).