According to CNN, when the federal judge in Loughner’s case asked for a plea from the defendant, Loughner’s federal public defender asked the judge “to enter one on Loughner’s behalf.” The judge then apparently entered a not guilty plea.
Assuming that this is what actually happened, why would such a thing take place? That is to say, why wouldn’t the public defender directly plead not guilty on Loughner’s behalf? Does Loughner have to actually make the plea himself, and if he won’t cooperate the judge has to be the one who enters the plea, as opposed to the counsel for the defense? I’ll assume that the judge won’t just say “OK, the defendant pleads guilty then. Sentencing to follow tomorrow.”
Does this maneuver allow the counsel for the defense to modify the plea at a later date, to, say, “not guilty by reason of mental defect” as opposed to a straight “not guilty” plea? Is this a strategem of some kind on behalf of the defense?
In a civilian criminal case the defendant has to state the plea for himself. If the defendant is uncooperative or being a dimwit, the judge will enter a plea of not guilty for him. I don’t know if that’s the case here, though. The request might have been made for some other reason.
A “not guilty” plea is pretty standard at this stage, regardless of what the defense intends to do down the road, and a refusal or inabilty to enter a plea results in the judge entering a not guilty plea on the defendant’s behalf. My “listening to the radio on the way to work” understanding was that Loughner did enter a plea of not guilty himself, but if his attorney did request that the judge enter a plea of not gulity for him, it’s possible that (1) Loughner was being too difficult to enter a plea on his own like friedo says, or (2) his attorney wanted the judge to enter a not guilty plea on Loughner’s behalf because she wanted to argue his insanity and/or incompetence to stand trial later and his voluntarily and knowingly entering a plea on his own behalf wasn’t consistent with that. Loughner’s entering his own plea wouldn’t legally prevent that, but this allows her to start building her narrative about his insanity and incompetency.