Defendant attacks judge; chaos ensues

You'll have to sign in to confirm your age to watch to the video, so I guess that rules FF out.

@Chaos Descending @Raoul the Red Shirt @The Original Faceman I think you gents are lawyers?

In the United States, can a public defender fire his client?

Yes. But it’s not always easy if you’ve already taken the case. You may have to seek leave of court if you’ve progressed too far into the case and the client is uncooperative.

Another option is to just move the client to another PD in your office with client consent. You can also, if the case is still early, figure out that your office can’t rep the client and move the case to the conflict counsel office - a panel of contract defense attorneys who take cases the PDs ethically can’t.

A pity, he'd really be overjoyed.

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Seahawks could use that guy on their defense

Without doing any research and not having a clue about the particular laws of this jurisdiction, I would say the typical lawyer answer of "It depends" applies.

This occurred at sentencing for a crime, so when the defendant gets actually sentenced for that crime, it's possible that the public defender who represented him can recuse himself.

When it comes to the crime of attacking the judge and the sheriff's deputy, that public defender is a witness and so presumably will be conflicted out. I would argue that the entire office should say that they have an ethical conflict representing him in both the first case and the second. *insert lawyer/ethics joke here.*

This fine young pillar of the community is just upset they made him late for bible class.

I saw this on the "Clock" app and I couldn't believe what I was watching. not only did he have the audacity to attack a judge on the bench after pleading with her about how he was a changed man, but the shear athleticism he displayed in clearing that bench is remarkable. Glad he'll be off the streets for a while.

The audacity isn't the surprise so much as the fact that he cleared the bench the way he did.

That mostly depends on how high the prison walls are.

Did he hurdle the defense table AND the bench or shove his attorney out of the way? The video above doesn’t show that angle.

Also, I doubt this line of argument is going to cause her to reconsider her judgement.

From what I see, he walked up to the bench and then jumped at least 4 feet in the air to hurdle the bench completely for the tackle of the judge. Probably closer to five.

I'm not sure who his attorney is or if we see him in the video. My guess would be that it's the balding guy who is on screen well after the defendant has already made the jump and is struggling with multiple people.

BTW, the video is available at the link without the age restriction below:

https://news.yahoo.com/nevada-judge-attacked-defendant-during-011707106.html

The video in the OP has the five minutes leading up to the hurdle and cuts between shots of the judge and a camera behind her showing the rest of the courtroom.

He is behind (a large) defendants table with his attorney aisleside. Dude was about 10m meters from the bench.

Not only can he jump but he is FAST.

He already drafted Aaron Hernandez.

There's likely a table below the bench that may have let him step and jump.

Looking at the clip in the OP with the audio, it strikes me that he claims mental illness, bipolar and schizophrenia. There aren't any easy answers where that is concerned IMO. Obviously attacks like this can't be tolerated. But treatment options are limited, and assuming for argument's sake that this is a valid diagnosis that someone made of him and not just him asserting that he's mentally ill, what do you do with a guy like this?

Ship him off the real-world equivalent of Arkham?