Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> StandDown Texas Project

Criminal Law

: StandDown Texas Project

News Coverage of Indiana v. Edwards (07-208)

By standdown

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in an Indiana case with wide ramifications for the states.  The issue of the mentally ill representing themselves at trial was a central issue in the case of Scott Panetti in Texas.  The SCOTUSwiki page for Indiana v. Edwards is here.  Yesterday's oral argument transcript is here. In the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse reports, "Court Looks at Legal Role for Mentally Ill."A landmark Supreme Court decision 33 years ago gave criminal defendants the right to represent themselves at trial. The right to proceed without a lawyer, the court said then, was a logical corollary to the Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. If the Constitution gave people the right to a lawyer, the justices reasoned, then it necessarily gave them to right to dispense with one, as well...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).