Published on: Monday, August 2, 2021

Second Circuit issues notice to criminal defense lawyers: If your client with a history of mental health issues and delusions that police officers with ties to the occult and to pedophile rings are harassing her, while shoeless and disheveled repeatedly bites a Border Patrol agent while purporting to arrest the agent with the agent's own handcuffs for his participation in a "great cabal to eat babies," effective assistance of counsel might require the lawyer to introduce expert evidence in support of an insanity defense. Case remanded.

The case is United States v. Melhuish, No. 19-485, (2d Cir. July 27, 2021).