Collar-bomb defendant listed as own lawyer; competency questioned

[Robb]

Source: Sentinel

PITTSBURGH - A woman charged in a bizarre bank robbery scheme that killed a pizza deliveryman with a bomb locked onto his neck is now listed in court records as her own attorney, but her court-appointed lawyer believes she is mentally ill.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, 58, is awaiting trial on charges stemming from the August 2003 robbery plot. The deliveryman, Brian Wells, told police he had been forced at gunpoint to wear a time bomb around his neck and rob the bank. The device exploded as police waited for a bomb squad to arrive.

Diehl-Armstrong and her federal public defender, Thomas Patton, have been sparring since she filed a handwritten motion two weeks ago asking to have Patton replaced. She called Patton "incompetent," and said she needed a new attorney because he lacks "fire in the belly" and charisma.

Patton on Friday said he did not know why Armstrong is now listed in court records as representing herself, but he declined to comment further on the case.

Read more: http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2008/02/01/ap-state-pa/d8uhlbeg0.txt

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...Remember this one? Strange, strange, strange.

[MADem]

1. I remember, I was... horrified. nt

[Alcibiades]

2. absolutely competent and sane

An actually crazy person might go into a bank and hand them a note demanding a ticket to Neptune, then wait for the UFO to show up (at least, someone who would meet the federal statutory criteria for being not guilty by reasonm of insanity).

Someone who realized that using a bomb-wearing patsy as a shill to do a bank robbery, and then clever enough to execute it, is cunning, not crazy. Plenty competent to assist in their own defense.

Public defenders use competency or sanity issues to mount a defense when their client has no real defense. She will go down for the rest of her life.