385: Pro Se
Jul 10, 2009
It's tempting to act as your own lawyer, to argue your own cause. Who better to defend your position than you? This week, stories of pro se defenses: Some brilliant, some disastrous.
A man fakes his way into an insane asylum by pretending to be crazy, and then can't argue his way back out. And another man uses vigilante justice to defend his sister's honor, using a strategy he didn't know he had in him.
- Earlier this year, admitted drug user Jorge Cruz decided to act as his own lawyer in an Albany, New York criminal court. Impossibly, he won. Ira talks to Francisco Calderon, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, about what it feels like to lose to an amateur. (10 minutes)
Photo
Broadmoor Hospital image from the BBC.
