Bell withdraws request for attorney
Print
Email
Save
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
After filing a motion Tuesday asking for a defense attorney, Anthony Bell — who is representing himself in his first-degree murder trial — withdrew it today when told he can’t pick and choose his court-appointed lawyers.
Bell, who denies killing his wife and four of her relatives in a 2006 church shooting, asked District Judge Todd Hernandez to appoint public defender Greg Rome as his lone attorney.
Bell fired Rome and lead defense attorney Margaret Lagattuta in February, saying he wanted to represent himself.
However, Bell filed a written motion Tuesday asking Hernandez to re-appoint Rome — and Rome only — as his attorney. This morning he said needs Rome’s help to attack the testimony of the state’s star witness, Claudia Brown.
Brown was the lone adult survivor of the May 2006 church shooting spree in Baton Rouge.
Hernandez told Bell today that he has the right to appointed counsel since he is indigent. But the judge added that Bell does not have any right to pick which attorneys will defend him.
Bell said several times that he wanted Rome to represent him, not Lagattuta.
Bell today privately talked to Mike Mitchell, director of the Public Defender’s Office. Bell said Mitchell told him he could not choose which public defenders he would get. Bell cited that as the reason for withdrawing the motion.
Bell continued to cross-examine Brown this morning, saying her testimony that she saw him holding a gun in the church doesn’t mean he was the killer.
“Does that mean I shot the gun?” he asked her.
Prosecutor Mark Dumaine objected, and Brown did not answer.
Later, Dumaine asked Brown if her daughter and murder victim, Erica Brown, could have possibly shot and killed four members of her family in the church that day. Brown said no.
Bell claims Erica Bell killed her family members, and later herself, after he confessed in church to having sex with her mother.
 | ||||
| Most Popular | Most Emailed | Hot Topics | ||
