A Right to Stupidity

Every so often in a high-profile court case, someone decides to represent themselves instead of having 'professional' counsel. I'm talking about Moussaui of course.

My question is, what's the big deal? It's pretty sad in this day and age that court procedures and rules of evidence are so convoluted and complicated that a lay person with a brain can't defend themselves. The piles of court cases and legal mumbo-jumbo is what gave us Miranda in the first place. You shouldn't have the right to an attorney, because you shouldn't need one. Of course, many of the founding fathers thought that America would evolve into a country of educated farmers and businessmen, but with the continued dumbing-down of our educational system this isn't the case for many of the young skulls full of mush who attend 'publik skoolz'. So we're kind of stuck now unless we throw a lot of the rules out, and the lawyers lobby is far too powerful to allow that to happen.

With Moussaui, it shouldn't be a big deal. He still has the right to act as his own attorney, and it will save us a lot of money in his prosecution. He won't know how to draw things out in the courts for years like many of the slimy defense attorneys do, just hoping the victims and witnesses will tire of the case and not show up anymore.

Of course this isn't going to happen in this case, even if he had OJ's defense team. However, if he did, you and I would be paying for his defense. Sure, I know, innocent until proven guilty, and you can't try someone in the press - but isn't it sad that tax payer dollars paid for his lawyers up until now?