Avila

A criminal defendant has a hard enough time defending the underlying charge. He should not “pick a new fight” with the prosecutor and yet another fight with his court-appointed counsel, i.e., he should not threaten to kill them thereby creating two new cases to defend. Here, appellant is charged with having done exactly that. He created two new felony cases against himself by threatening both the prosecutor and his own lawyer. These threats created, at the least, potential conflicts of interest which led the trial court to remove the district attorney (and appoint the Attorney General) and the public defender (and appoint new defense counsel). As we shall explain, removal of the public defender was within the trial court’s discretion and was a safe and rational way to proceed. 1 The trial court was trying to protect appellant’s right to conflict-free counsel and the irony is that it is now faulted for doing so.

*720 Daniel Avila appeals from the trial court’s orders, entered in three separate criminal cases after a single hearing, declaring him mentally incompetent to stand trial and committing him to the Metropolitan State Hospital. He contends the trial court deprived…