*In U.S. District Court in Detroit, Abdulmutallab told a federal judge Thursday that he prefers to continue acting as his own lawyer…
Abdulmutallab also told the judge that he didn’t think his standby attorney, Anthony Chambers, should have access to the government’s discovery materials.
Edmunds disagreed, saying Abdulmutallab’s decision to represent himself was one thing. Keeping evidence out of the hands of a professional he might need down the road is another.
“I’m overruling you on this,” Edmunds told Abdulmutallab, stressing, “You don’t have legal training in U.S. law.”*
What is the basis upon which a mentally competent individual taking the position that he does not want external legal help is forced to have an attorney acting upon his best interests?
The reasoning is it saves time and money. If a person is without a lawyer, even by his own request, and is found liable or guilty, he/she can come back later on and complain he/she wasn’t given a fair trial.
Then a retrial would take place, perhaps or perhaps not, but then would come the appeal and so forth.
It wastes everyone’s time and a lot of money. By having the lawyer standing by, this argument is done away with.
In the end, the judge is making sure that everyone gets a fair trial, whether or not they want it.
It’s also pretty clear in the article that the judge wants the lawyer to be up to speed in case the defendant suddenly decides halfway through the trial that he needs one.
The court can require that the accused have “standby” counsel, which is basically a licensed attorney who is made privy to all of the evidence and who is ready to step in and assume the representation if the defendant changes his mind about self-representation or becomes unable to continue (e.g., flips out in court). Standby counsel does not speak for the defendant, and the defendant is not obliged to listen to them.
Beyond that, however, a mentally competent defendant has a constitutional right to act as his own counsel. This is in fact what is happening in the Abdulmutallab case. He is exercising his right to self-representation, and the judge is insisting that he have standby counsel.
The judge is within his rights for the reasons stated, and IMHO is wise to do so. Even pissed-off, headstrong, unjustifiably self-confident pro se defendants (is there any other kind?) often realize partway through trial that they’re in waaaaaaaaay over their heads and need a lawyer after all. Then standby counsel can step right in.
Chambers isn’t acting on Abdulmutallab’s behalf in the courtroom so Abdulmutallab is still representing himself.
So the issue is whether Abdulmutallab can control access to the material in question. Being as it’s being entered as evidence in a court case, Abdulmutallab’s expectation of privacy has already been legally breached. So the judge is free to rule that Chambers has reasonable cause to see the material.