Currently, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments for Indiana v. Edwards a case determining the standard for whether a schizophrenic complainant can represent herself pro se. If you peruse the transcript, the discussion piques at a point when the justices on the Court discuss whether an incoherent defense amounts to a disrespectful defense such as in a relevant case Illinois v. Allen. In that case the point is made that a defendant must be disorderly and disruptive to signal judicial intervention. Conversely, if the defendant is polite and civil, she may continue no matter how acute her illness may appear to others. It simply boils down to the test that the court may use and science, medicine, and empirical data and analysis will have more of a bearing on the outcome rather than judicial opinion. Take Agent Orange, "the Vietnam War’s toxic legacy" for example, totally unrelated to Indiana v. Edwards but illustrative of my point. Agent Orange was the name given to multiple herbides used by Americans during the Vietnam War. The resulting outcome of the latent chemical warfare has been generations of Vietnamese and U.S. veterans exhibiting birth defects and other symptoms of Dioxin. Dioxin is the result of the chemical reaction the herbicides have the toxin enters the body. The only documentation of litigation over this tradgedy in the U.S. courts is a Second Circuit order that allows all those affected by Agent Orange in the United States to be joined together in class action suit. There is no more court record because the case was settled out of court years ago although there is plenty media attention given to fact that many people still experience medical reactions to the agent to this day. My point is that strange enough, VA hospitals have no accurate test to determine whether a United States veteran is the victim of the chemical agent. The VA hospital only offers X-rays, a test that is very inadequate to determine toxicity. The more appropriate test is a blood and body fat analysis that must be done by an assumingly expensive private laboratory. Sometimes the courts should step back and let society take over. I think that it is overbearing for a judge to make the decision that a jury should make once all the research is done and presented to the public. As always, the government is light years away from what is common knowledge in the private or business sectors. The courts know it, and the only person that suffers is you. That is, unless you get the slight chance for oral argument.
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