Court Opinion

ID: 9453714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:21:20.996117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:46.112469
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring):
I concur in the opinion and the result but refer also to what seems to me an additional and important problem on which guidance of the courts is needed, and I am confident desired, by counsel for defendants whose sanity is in question, in order that they may discharge their obligations of representation meeting constitutional standards of effectiveness.
When the sanity of the accused is in question may counsel accept the direction of the family of the accused that a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity not be interposed? May counsel accept employment at the instance of the family on condition that such a plea not be entered, having knowledge that previous *214counsel has been discharged by the family for unwillingness to accede to that condition? Is such a situation cured by the direction of the accused himself that the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity will not be entered?