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Quotes of the day

In case you missed some of the coverage of the Supreme Court from last week, the Court heard a case testing the extent to which defendants are allowed to represent themselves in court. The case, Indiana v. Edwards, involves a defendant on trial for attempted murder who was ruled to be sane enough to stand trial, but too mentally disturbed to represent himself. The trial judge did not want the trial to devolve into a farce.

OK, onto the funny stuff:

Stancil (who represented the defendant Edwards before the high court) said at other times, though, that Edwards provided lucid answers to legal questions from the judge.

Justice Anthony Kennedy was not impressed by Stancil's observation. "There are all kinds of nuts who can get 90 percent on the bar exam," Kennedy said.

Feeling a little bitter about your experience teaching at McGeorge, are we?

"He can plead guilty if he wishes and that's OK," Scalia said. "Only he can't put on an incompetent defense?...The state still has to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said the right to self-representation is not absolute. "It is within the state's authority to override self-representation when the defendant can't communicate coherently," Fisher said.

Scalia shot back, "I sometimes think lawyers can't communicate coherently."

And sometimes even the great Justice Scalia can't communicate coherently. See, e.g. Scalia's memo explaining his refusal to recuse himself from Cheney v. United States District Court.

Yes, a mentally disturbed (according to Family Guy, the preferred nomenclature is "mentally hilarious") guy might turn a trial into a farce. But would it be any worse than this, or this, or even this?

Full post as published by Supreme Dicta on March 31, 2008 (boomark / email).