Rudy Giuliani bumbles through hearing with sex assault accuser that ends with personal attacks and a mute button

[moniss]

3. This is flat out bizarre to me how the judge handled this

issue of representation. So you're holding a hearing and the defendant is unsure if he is pro se or not. But you allow an attorney who may or may not be legally representing the defendant to make arguments to the court to strike items from the complaint? While at the same time allowing the defendant to make arguments? Also you allow argument about evidence and dismissal of items in the complaint without the defendant ever having filed a response to the complaint? Hey judge how about telling them "File your response first and then I will entertain a period for the counter-response from the plaintiff. Then we will have a hearing and arguments and I will then rule on any requests to strike items from the complaint. At that point I will schedule discovery and we will proceed." This idea of months and months go by and people come to court willy-nilly with no firm declaration of representation and then we're going to proceed to evidentiary claims and argument is preposterous. For heaven's sake are we now having cases run like we're all in the middle of the tavern shaking our fists at each other? Maybe we should just go down to the pier and have it all go down in a warehouse.