[AnAmericanMother]

It's a little counterintuitive, but the judge did the right thing.

If there's a problem with competency, it needs to be addressed now. Otherwise it can be raised in an out of time appeal and again on habeas, and the case will be bogged down in the court system for decades.

Nail it down now, and the whole process will be finished much sooner.

[Little Ray]

I agree with you.
Any failure to consider ‘competency’ would tie up the conviction in knots.
Do the discovery now and the inevitable appeals will have less traction.

[blueplum]

I agree. Also, if the judge accepts the guilty plea, and he later claims coercion it’s back to square one. He certainly can’t claim coercion on a not-guilty. The judge seems to be buying insurance on the eventual verdict by outmaneuvering his counsel.

[Dogbert41]

Yes. Dot every “I” and cross every “T”.

[MHT]

Competency? He was certainly competent enough to ask his victim if she was going to convert to Islam and when she said no, he did that which Islam commands---killed her with a sword. His victim was a Christian martyr and died for the faith. She was stronger in her conviction than St. Peter was on the night of the Cruxifiction.

Sure hope the Judge was right and he gets his...for murder and NOT "workplace violence."