Some Capitol defendants forgoing lawyers in court
At least 5 charged in riot have chosen to defend selves
Some of the defendants charged in the storming of the U.S. Capitol are turning away defense lawyers and electing to represent themselves, undeterred by their lack of legal training or repeated warnings from judges.
While the right to self-representation is a bedrock principle of the Constitution, a longtime judge cited an old adage in advising a former California police chief that he would have “a fool for a client” if he represented himself.
And Michael Magner, a New Orleans criminal defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, observed, “Just because you have a constitutional right to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s smart.”
The decision by at least five defendants to defend themselves is bound to create a host of challenges. That includes getting themselves in more legal trouble if they say the wrong thing in court.
“I would never represent myself if I were charged with a crime,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth told Alan Hostetter before allowing him to handle his own defense against riot charges. The judge warned the ex-police chief that he has never seen anyone successfully represent himself since his appointment to the bench in 1987.
Hostetter was arrested in June with five others on charges they conspired to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
Hostetter, who began teaching yoga after more than 20 years as an officer, told Lamberth that the “corruption of this investigation” is one reason he wants to represent himself. His finances also were a factor.
“I believe that it’s a governmental strategy and tactic that if they can’t convict you, they at least want to bankrupt and destroy you,” Hostetter said.
Brandon Fellows of upstate New York recently unsuccessfully petitioned U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden to release him from jail.
Video shows Fellows, who was photographed with his feet on a table in the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. Fellows was locked up this summer for missing a mental health evaluation and harassing a probation officer.
Fellows took the stand to argue for his release, brushing aside warnings that he could open himself to perjury charges if he testified. In doing so, Fellows may have compounded his legal troubles.
Fellows told McFadden that he used what he described as a “loophole” he had read about online to disqualify a different judge overseeing an unrelated case in New York. Fellows said he listed a phone number for that judge’s wife as his own number in court records to make it appear that he knows the woman.
In denying Fellows, McFadden told Fellows that he admitted to likely obstructing justice in the New York case and considering it in his riot case.
McFadden, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also jailed self-represented defendant Pauline Bauer last month for failing to comply with court orders to cooperate with probation officers during her pretrial release.
Bauer was arrested in May with a friend who joined her at the Capitol. Video from a police officer’s body camera captured Bauer saying to bring out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to be hanged, the FBI says.
Bauer, who owns a restaurant in Kane, Pennsylvania, has repeatedly interrupted the judge during hearings. She also has argued that the court doesn’t have any jurisdiction over her, expressing an ideology that appears to comport with the “sovereign citizens” movement.
During a July hearing, Bauer told McFadden that she doesn’t want “any lawyering from the bench.”
When the judge denied her request to dismiss her charges, she asked, “On what terms?”
“You don’t get to demand terms from me,” replied McFadden.
After U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled last month that Eric Bochene can represent himself, the upstate New York man submitted a “fee schedule.”
The filing indicates he wants to charge up to $250,000 for spending two hours in court if he feels he is appearing “under protest and duress” and $50,000 if he is there voluntarily.
A “forced giving of bodily fluids” carries a $5 million charge under Bochene’s billing schedule.
A fifth riot defendant, Brian Christopher Mock, began representing himself last month after having an assistant federal public defender as his attorney, court records indicate. A tipster told the FBI that Mock bragged about assaulting police officers and destroying property at the Capitol after he returned home to Minnesota.
More than 640 people have been charged in the riot.