A person who is severely mentally ill may be barred from representing themselves if they would not be able to do a competent job.
My thoughts on that is tbh at if a defendant was coherently and effectively serving as their own attorney in court, that would indicate to the court that they are not severely mentally ill. Or if they produced evidence like expert testimony saying they were, it could disqualify them from self representing.
My thoughts on that is tbh at if a defendant was coherently and effectively serving as their own attorney in court, that would indicate to the court that they are not severely mentally ill.
You really can’t say that. Psychoses come and go, people with severe mental illness can be completely normal one day and delusional the other.
I guess it depends what the court wants to believe, which could be based on case law/precedent or expert testimony. It seems likely to me that an insanity defense being presented would increase the scrutiny the judge would apply to the defendant’s competence to represent themselves. It is required that a judge establish that a defendant seeking to go Pro Se is making an informed and rational decision.
Nothing is stopping them from trying, but expect the opposition to demolish any try with procedural knowledge.
If anything, representing yourself should make the insanity defense stronger.
When I worked forensic psych pretty much everybody who wanted to plead insanity was trying to weasel out of something horrible (time spent institutionalized NGRI is almost always waaay longer than an equivalent prison sentence so it’s only worth it if you’re going away for life anyway). Those ones would try to put on a good show on the unit but I only ever saw one of them commit hard enough (they literally faked it until they actually were mentally ill).
The people who were legit psychotic would just keep defending the psychosis as reality in increasingly bizarre ways. They’d demand to represent themselves because the court appointed lawyer kept trying to talk them into accepting treatment but noooo, they needed to make a public statement about how they’re not crazy and the gay bar really is full of alien pedos and their court date for public intoxication and indecent exposure is their big moment to let the world know.
So I guess you could. But nobody would buy it.
What a bs. Why should I need to “represent” myself when I can just be myself.
