In United States v. Brugnara, --- F.3d ---, Case No. 15-10509 (9th Cir. 2017), the Court affirmed the defendant's convictions arising out of an art purchase gone terribly wrong.
The defendant represented himself and his behavior at trial was less than ideal:
From the moment his trial began, Brugnara’s behavior could be described as appalling. He quickly dispensed with procedural and evidentiary requirements during his examinations by making speeches and asking improper “questions” designed to place inadmissible evidence before the jury. If the government attorneys objected, Brugnara would speak over them and interrupt the judge when he tried to make a ruling. Brugnara shouted down attempts to rein him in on several occasions.
In addition to these procedural affronts, Brugnara was not shy about personally insulting those around him. Some of the more egregious examples include telling the government’s attorney that she dressed “like a Nazi” and suggesting that the judge hand the prosecutor his robe because she was running the courtroom. Nor did he limit his scorn to the government and district judge: he berated witnesses, too. During his cross-examination of Long, for example, he rudely asked her over and over again if her cognitive abilities were impaired. He also demeaned a probation officer as unqualified for her job because she did not know the difference between a corporate officer and a shareholder.
Eventually, he was convicted on six of nine counts and sentenced to 84 months.
The appeal addressed a host of issues: (1) new trial motion based on newly discovered evidence; (2) sufficiency of the evidence for wire and mail fraud; (3) sufficiency of the evidence for making a false declaration before a court; (4) jurors who answer dishonestly about criminal history; (5) a pro se defendant's right to access legal materials; (5) a district court's obligation to terminate the right to self-representation based on competency concerns; and (6) a district court's obligation to order a competency evaluation sua sponte
The Court rejected each of the defendant's arguments. If you have a case with one of these issues, the opinion is worth a read.
