Word: ferguson
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Acting as his own defense attorney in a bizarre trial, the man accused of murdering six people in a shooting spree on a Long Island commuter train wrapped up his case today by telling the jury that survivors of the massacre conspired with police to implicate him. Colin Ferguson''s closing argument came after the judge refused to permit testimony from a defense witness who allegedly told the prosecutor that authorities used a remote-controlled computer chip in the 37-year-old defendant''s brain to manipulate his behavior. Charged with shooting 25 people on a crowded train...
Ronald Kuby, unoficial legal adviser to Cloin Ferguson, as quoted in The Boston Globe, Feb. 14, 1995. Ferguson, the defendant in the Long Island commuter train shootings, is representing himself in the ongoing trial. Kuby was dismissed by Ferguson after pressing for an insanity defense...
...stand trial. The judgment is debatable. Says Kuby: ``They should have found him incompetent and packed him off to a mental institution.'' But it was in keeping with current judicial practice--and with the belief of many Americans that an asylum is too good for the likes of Ferguson or, say, Jeffrey Dahmer...
However, having decided competence, Belfi was obligated to let Ferguson represent himself. Reason: a 1993 Supreme Court majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas. If a defendant is competent to stand trial, it ran, he is competent to decide whether to represent himself. And if he so opts, then the presiding judge's opinion of how well he would do the job is immaterial...
...Unless Ferguson becomes overtly disruptive, which he has avoided thus far, it seems that the only way for Belfi to cut short his surreal career at the bar would be to rescind the decision on competence to stand trial, thereby ending the proceedings. That might sit badly with Phillips, her fellow victims and much of the public...