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> "This is a very difficult issue," he says. "Obviously most of us would think that the lawyer should just do what's in the best interest of the client in the v

> "This is a very difficult issue," he says. "Obviously most of us would think that the lawyer should just do what's in the best interest of the client in the view of the lawyer." Absolutely freaking not. This is not how professional services works. I hope this is not actually an endemic perspective in the legal community?

stcredzero 9y ago
This is not how professional services works. That is highly contextual. A coworker of mine called that the "Physician <-> Prostitute Spectrum." Certain service providers will pretty much do whatever you pay them to. Other service providers will filter their request through their expert knowledge. This also depends on the nature of the request, of course. It's not like a Doctor is going to give you a sex change you didn't ask for, if things are working correctly. Whether to plead guilty should be up to the client, unless they aren't competent.
- philipodonnell 9y ago
  I get where you're coming from, but, there's a difference between not wanting to do a particular thing that your client wants you to do, and doing something different from what a client wants you to do. A better analogy would be going to a prostitute and insisting on a condom, but then the prostitute pokes some holes in it and becomes pregnant "because you seemed lonely so I thought a child might be best for you". That would be a case of requesting one service (protected sex not resulting in pregnancy) but getting an undesirable one (unprotected sex resulting in pregnancy) solely because the service professional disagreed with "what's in the best interest of the client in the view of the [prostitute]". Which, to put it mildly, is not what you paid for. :-) If a hired professional disagrees with a course of action that a customer has explicitly requested, the appropriate action is to decline to enter into a professional services arrangement, or break an existing one. Not just go ahead with whatever you wanted to do anyway because you think its better.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    A better analogy would be going to a prostitute and insisting on a condom, but then the prostitute pokes some holes in it and becomes pregnant "because you seemed lonely so I thought a child might be best for you". Not a better analogy. The same analogy. It's a counterpart to the unwanted sex change from the Doctor. (From what I've read, it's certain that an unasked for sex change was performed by some doctors on some infants.)
nzealand 9y ago
It gets difficult when you are determined to be mentally competent to stand trial, but you are clearly not mentally competent enough to make legal decisions. > State psychiatric experts found McCoy mentally competent to stand trial. > McCoy suffered from diminished mental capacity > people who represent themselves in major criminal trials often have enormous mental health problems and imperception of reality. It is a very, very high bar these days in order to be found mentally incompetent, and as there is no social safety net, the mentally incompetent are disproportionately prosecuted via the legal system.
- philipodonnell 9y ago
  I thought one of the bars for being mental competence _was_ something about being competent enough to play a role in your legal defense? This seems more like the court thought he was fine and the lawyer decided the guy was mentally incompetent himself, which, given the article lists several other mistakes the lawyer apparently made, this sounds like he just was kind of a crappy/lazy lawyer. In case anyone thinks I'm not considering the difficulties faced by overworked public defenders, I here ya, but the lawyer that screwed all this up was retained by his parents. > He briefly acted as his own lawyer until his parents hired Larry English to defend him, and even then, the defendant continued to file motions in his own defense. English repeatedly advised McCoy to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison, but McCoy repeatedly refused, insisting that he was innocent. Finally, English embarked on a strategy of conceding his client's guilt, in hopes of avoiding the death penalty."
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > I thought one of the bars for being mental competence _was_ something about being competent enough to play a role in your legal defense? Right, but it sounds like a big part of the problem here is that the bar is set very high here, perhaps more than is reasonable.

stcredzero 9y ago

This is not how professional services works. That is highly contextual. A coworker of mine called that the "Physician <-> Prostitute Spectrum." Certain service providers will pretty much do whatever you pay them to. Other service providers will filter their request through their expert knowledge. This also depends on the nature of the request, of course. It's not like a Doctor is going to give you a sex change you didn't ask for, if things are working correctly. Whether to plead guilty should be up to the client, unless they aren't competent.

philipodonnell 9y ago
I get where you're coming from, but, there's a difference between not wanting to do a particular thing that your client wants you to do, and doing something different from what a client wants you to do. A better analogy would be going to a prostitute and insisting on a condom, but then the prostitute pokes some holes in it and becomes pregnant "because you seemed lonely so I thought a child might be best for you". That would be a case of requesting one service (protected sex not resulting in pregnancy) but getting an undesirable one (unprotected sex resulting in pregnancy) solely because the service professional disagreed with "what's in the best interest of the client in the view of the [prostitute]". Which, to put it mildly, is not what you paid for. :-) If a hired professional disagrees with a course of action that a customer has explicitly requested, the appropriate action is to decline to enter into a professional services arrangement, or break an existing one. Not just go ahead with whatever you wanted to do anyway because you think its better.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  A better analogy would be going to a prostitute and insisting on a condom, but then the prostitute pokes some holes in it and becomes pregnant "because you seemed lonely so I thought a child might be best for you". Not a better analogy. The same analogy. It's a counterpart to the unwanted sex change from the Doctor. (From what I've read, it's certain that an unasked for sex change was performed by some doctors on some infants.)

nzealand 9y ago

It gets difficult when you are determined to be mentally competent to stand trial, but you are clearly not mentally competent enough to make legal decisions. > State psychiatric experts found McCoy mentally competent to stand trial. > McCoy suffered from diminished mental capacity > people who represent themselves in major criminal trials often have enormous mental health problems and imperception of reality. It is a very, very high bar these days in order to be found mentally incompetent, and as there is no social safety net, the mentally incompetent are disproportionately prosecuted via the legal system.

philipodonnell 9y ago
I thought one of the bars for being mental competence _was_ something about being competent enough to play a role in your legal defense? This seems more like the court thought he was fine and the lawyer decided the guy was mentally incompetent himself, which, given the article lists several other mistakes the lawyer apparently made, this sounds like he just was kind of a crappy/lazy lawyer. In case anyone thinks I'm not considering the difficulties faced by overworked public defenders, I here ya, but the lawyer that screwed all this up was retained by his parents. > He briefly acted as his own lawyer until his parents hired Larry English to defend him, and even then, the defendant continued to file motions in his own defense. English repeatedly advised McCoy to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison, but McCoy repeatedly refused, insisting that he was innocent. Finally, English embarked on a strategy of conceding his client's guilt, in hopes of avoiding the death penalty."
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > I thought one of the bars for being mental competence _was_ something about being competent enough to play a role in your legal defense? Right, but it sounds like a big part of the problem here is that the bar is set very high here, perhaps more than is reasonable.