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EXACTLY why they won't.What they could do as they've indicated as a possibility is to request a competency evaluation. But then they'd be screwed if it came back normal or very low on any spectrum or MUCH WORSE!
Rbbm
From this article that was posted above, Howard Blum is predicting that sometime this summer, before the trial, BK's defense team will do the following -
They will appeal to the court that their uncooperative, uncompromising client is preventing them from doing what's in his best interest. His autism prohibits him from making reasonable decisions. Therefore, they will want to take the decision-making power out of his hands. Despite their client's protests, they will ask the court to allow a guilty plea – with the hope that in return the state will forgo the death penalty and accept a life sentence.
I think that Blum's speculation is far-fetched and I don't think that an attorney can go against the wishes of their client with regard to a plea. I think that the most they could do would be to ask to be taken off the case but at this stage in the process, I don't think the judge would allow that.
In any event, I don't think AT will go this route and intends to see this case through with the goal of avoiding a death sentence for BK, and possibly also with the goal of laying the groundwork for an appeal of the case.
All those qualities outlined in the Defense MILs about how he can't participate in his defense, how he's pedantic and refusing to grasp the severity of the charges -- all unpleasant traits, to be sure, but none of that is what incompetence is!
Here's a truth for AT, which maybe she just hasn't encountered before -- maybe BK refuses to grasp the severity of what he did because he is fully resting in entitlement for doing it. Justified. The very kind of personality disorders which IMO serial killers share. He's not sorry he did it. He's sorry lesser people don't understand went he did it.
He's educated, articulate, well-versed in criminal procedure (as evidenced by his paper), knows societal right from wrong (pre-planning, post-cleanup -- consciousness of guilt). He knows it's wrong. He just doesn't care.
In any event, IMO AT is pushing the envelope of competency without producing testing and an expert. Wants the advantage without the proof.
It's laughable to me that the best her experts can say is that, as a child, maybe BK should have been diagnosed with the clumsy/can't tie his shoelaces disorder, but when it came to his fine motor skills in adulthood, *poof*. He contorts his body to raise his arm. That's a flimsy report. Ouch.
BK is too mentally competent and too physically capable for AT to make inroads anywhere.
JMO