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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Twice the fool

Today's proof of the "person who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client" adage:

An Evansville man who insisted on defending himself and was sentenced to three years in prison is continuing acting as his own legal counsel and has filed a complaint about the presiding judge in his trial.

Michael J. Shepard, 34, was tried on Dec. 14. The trial lasted one day, and it took a six-member jury just minutes to find Shepard guilty of the misdemeanor charges of resisting law enforcement and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.

Vanderburgh Superior Court Judge Douglas Knight presided at the trial. In January he sentenced Shepard to three years in the Indiana Department of Correction.

[. . .]

Shepard sat silently during most of his trial. In his handwritten complaint to the commission, a copy of which he mailed to the Courier & Press, he said Knight should have stopped the trial to check on his welfare because of his unresponsiveness. But Shepard wrote in the complaint that instead, Knight "commenced the proceedings in a fashion similar to a Puritan witch trial in Salem rather than a court of law."

[. . .]

Attorney Jesse Poag was appointed by the Vanderburgh County Public Defender's Office to handle Shepard's appeal of his conviction in that case. He said Shepard's refusal to speak during most of his trial left little room for appeal.

"He just sat silently at the trial. If you don't raise issues at the trial, they can't be raised on appeal," he said.

In his appeal, Poag argued that Knight did not properly advise Shepard of the dangers and perils of self-representation at trial, especially in regard to specifics such as the rules of evidence and how that might affect his appeal.

Now he speaks up. No fair! You didn't warn me I'd probably screw up!

It's also worth noting that this conviction has led officials in Warrick County to seek revocation of his probation in that county on charges of battery, criminal mischief and public intoxication. He's representing himself in that case, too. Shouldn't he fire himself for incompetence?

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