United States v. Andrew P. Leazer

(concurring) :

I am a great deal more troubled than my colleagues by the trial court’s questioning of the witnesses who testified on the insanity defense. In what may well have been a good faith effort to elicit the factual underpinning of the witnesses’ conclusions, the trial court repeatedly interrupted defense counsel’s questioning of the witnesses, and assumed a considerable measure of the responsibility for their examination. In the course of his questioning, the trial judge made a number of pointed comments and observations which could have been taken by the jury to reflect some…