URBANA — Perhaps it’s fallout from the pandemic, like labor shortages, supply-chain interruptions and baby-formula scarcity.

Like those mysteries, there’s a phenomenon going on in the Champaign County legal system for which veteran courthouse players and observers do not have a good explanation.

At least 11 men ranging in age from 24 to 53 in custody for serious felony crimes such as gun possession, rape, shootings, kidnapping and murder have chosen to act as their own attorney, despite having never been to law school.

“They have often had a bad experience in the past and just don’t trust that an appointed lawyer is going to look out for them and fight for them,” said Judge Brett Olmstead.

Assigned to arraignment court, Olmstead is the first judge that a defendant sees after criminal charges are filed against them.

It’s his job to explain to defendants that the Supreme Court has mandated that they are entitled to legal representation, either a lawyer they choose and pay, or, if they can’t afford one, a public defender or other court-appointed lawyer paid by the government.

Should a defendant elect to go pro se, the Latin phrase meaning “for himself” or “in one’s own behalf,” Olmstead has to determine if that person is intelligently waiving their right to an attorney.

“You have a written script,” he said of the questions and admonitions in which he engages with the person who wants to represent themselves.

“I want to make sure if they are giving it up that they know what they are doing,” he said. “I have to make sure they are minimally competent to make that decision. I need to make sure they are not suffering from some sort of mental illness.”

Given that the average first appearance before a judge is about five minutes, that’s a tall order for even the most experienced judge.

“It’s not perfect,” Olmstead said. “I can’t subpoena their medical records. I can ask questions. But I also have to walk a line. I can’t actively discourage them, either, because they do have a right to represent themselves.”

Short of uttering an iconic observation usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln that the person who represents himself has a fool for a client, Olmstead tells defendants facing prison terms that self-representation “is a bad idea.”

Ideological differences

Champaign County Public Defender Janie Miller-Jones has done defense work locally for 23 years. She agrees that the current number of pro se defendants is unusually high.

“The ones I’ve had that have gone pro se don’t like what I have to tell them. They disagree with what the law is,” she said. “They have access to do their own research. They see something, latch on to it, read it wrong or have misinterpreted it.”

Additionally, there are other inmates who act as jailhouse lawyers, she said, and “they accept what that person says over the advice of their attorney.”

“People have an aversion to what they don’t want to believe, whether it be the truth or what the law is,” she said.

Miller-Jones does not think clients are dissatisfied because their attorneys cannot spend enough time with them.

However, the logistics of Champaign County inmates being housed in Kankakee and Decatur has definitely complicated the lives of defense attorneys, many of whom are forced to spend their weekends making in-person visits to out-of-county jails to go over police reports, videos and other evidence with clients as they prepare for trial.

Lindsey Lepp, the first assistant public defender who works with Miller-Jones, agreed that “many of our clients just don’t like what we have to say, so they want to represent themselves.”

“Some of them want to file motions that we believe there are no good bases for, so they represent themselves to file the motions that they want filed,” Lepp said. “I notice more and more of our clients seem to choose not to believe us when we break down the law as it applies to their cases. I sometimes wonder if this is connected to the rise in youthful offenders being charged with more serious offenses.”

No help from the bench

Pro se defendants are told by the judges, often repeatedly, that the judges cannot give them legal advice or otherwise assist them in court.

However, judges Randy Rosenbaum and Roger Webber, who hear the majority of the felony cases, often give pro se defendants great latitude when it comes to courtroom procedure, such as the way defendants ask questions or try to admit evidence, for example.

The judges take a lot of extra time dealing with defendants’ pretrial motions, explaining why certain statements or items of evidence may not be admissible in front of a jury. Often, what they are explaining would be covered in the first year of law school.

“The judges are doing what they can to keep from trying cases a second time,” observed Miller-Jones, a nod to the appellate process that automatically follows a conviction.

Lt. Ryan Snyder, who works at the Champaign County Jail, said pro se inmates “are not necessarily getting anything special by county jail standards.”

“We are required to give them access to the Illinois Compiled Statutes,” Snyder said. “We have physical copies.”

Inmates also have access in their cell block to “Casemaker,” a legal-research app that has Illinois’ and other states’ laws.

Snyder said discovery — the evidence the state has compiled against the accused — is delivered to them from the state’s attorney on a flash drive, not in paper form.

“We have purchased a laptop computer that does not hook up to the internet, but they can plug in their flash drive so that they can look at their discovery,” he said, adding there is only one laptop available for that purpose.

Some pro se defendants have complained to their judges that they cannot get the flash drives to open, which usually results in the judge asking the state’s attorney to deliver it in a different form that can be read.

Like the judges, correctional officers are not allowed to aid pro se defendants in their case preparation.

“There is frustration for some of them because we are also juggling (the fact that) we have one laptop for all those guys,” Snyder said.

“The laptop doesn’t have access to ‘Casemaker’ or the internet,” Snyder said. “We let them know that we don’t have case law and a library dedicated to cases, nor are we required to have that.”

Additionally, security classification measures require that the men be kept apart. Those using the laptop are usually allowed to go in a visitation room one at a time, but Snyder said if an attorney comes in and needs that room to see a client, then the pro se inmate has to leave.

Snyder, who’s worked in the jail for 16 years, said usually there are never more than three inmates at a time who want to act as their own lawyers.

“Some inmates in here are pretty intelligent when it comes to legal briefs because that is their life,” he said. “Some of them get the idea that they can be pro se … and if they lose, they can argue on appeal that they did not get a good defense.

“In my 16-plus years, I have not really seen a successful defense done by a pro se defendant. I don’t understand it. You wonder, is it just a way to get information from the state’s attorney about who is saying what and who the witnesses are? Is there an insidious motive behind this?”

Predictable outcomes

Of the men in custody who are currently representing themselves, one was convicted by Rosenbaum in a bench trial and the other was convicted by a jury that deliberated just 20 minutes. Both face mandatory prison time when they are sentenced later this month.

A third told Rosenbaum at more than one pretrial hearing and even on the day of trial that he was ready to represent himself on charges of unlawful use of weapons.

He initially had a public defender, then another court-appointed attorney who withdrew due to a conflict, then said he wanted to represent himself. Rosenbaum allowed his request.

After the jury was picked Aug. 26, he told the judge he didn’t receive discovery from the attorney who withdrew, so the judge declared a mistrial and sent the jury home, an expense to taxpayers of about $300 for the jurors summoned.

The state followed up Sept. 6 with a petition to hold the man in “major criminal contempt of court” for intentionally misleading the judge about being ready for trial when he was not. In support of that, the prosecutor supplied the judge with information from recorded jail phone calls in which the defendant told his mother he planned to ask for a mistrial after the jury was picked.

He also told the judge that he thought by saying he wasn’t ready for trial, the judge would dismiss the case.

The judge then appointed an attorney to represent the man on the contempt case.