[Music] read that Constitution you won't find the words legal illegal legality legales you won't find those words in there you won't find them in the Declaration of Independence you find lawful and unlawful and welcome to facts or frauds number 56 people versus Rebecca Valentine 249 F you thank you Jonathan I again on behalf of people so miss Valentine the last time we were in court I believe you requested to represent yourself I advised you that I didn't think that was a good idea and I appointed the public defender to represent you to have further convers I still think it's a very unwise decision for you to represent yourself so what are your thoughts on that um I decline your advice and I will be representing myself like I said a bunch of times all right I understand that you said it a bunch of times let me offer you again since we're if we see each other a bunch of times let me just let you into my world a little bit Miss Valentine's okay so I have a colleague who just like me had a defendant that demanded to represent himself and at each turn which is what I will do at every single court hearing is I will remind you of the risks that you face in representing yourself in that case she did that went to trial court of appeals then that person appealed the fact that she let him represent himself and now she got to do the trial over again so I am concerned about that and so for every purpose going forward at a minimum you're going to continue with the public defender on standby which means that if there's something you don't understand they are there to they are there to answer that question and we would provide time and space for you to speak with them the risk that you have Miss Valentine as I probably would have told you the last time we were here is that because you are in and I'm going to put this in air quotes So that you see me do that because you are in what is called a place of confinement meaning you are incarcerated and that is a statutorily defined location you could face consecutive not concurrent sentencing so a lot of times when someone goes to MDOC for more than one offense that whole time runs at the same time both of these charges are pending before you and if you were convicted of both of them them and it was determined that you committed them in a place of confinement which is what's being alleged because you're incarcerated you could have literally each of those sentences tacked on to the end of your current sentence and then the second one tapped on to the end of that new sentence if you were convicted so there is a huge risk for you there I may be boring you because I'm repeating this but I'm going to repeat it every time I see you because the risks are that high that you need to know that representing yourself is probably not a wise choice at this point do you wish to represent yourself yes and I've been saying that I'm guilty since like the first thing so that would be nice if you just took that flea and then we moved on with this show I'm just going to ask your opinion Mr do you think this witness do you think that this party is informed enough to enter a plea at this time or do you want to put an offer on the record if there is one and then give her an adjournment to think about it and if she's ready to go at that point we can enter The Plea then I mean I think that she understands that they can run consecutive and I would say that the maximum punishment I think on each of these offenses is a fiveyear offense she knows that she knows that she's supposed to have an attorney or that she can have an attorney and that she has one on standby obviously uh uh that might be difficult for today's purposes um is there an offer in this case there's not an offer other than for her to plead his charge I don't know enough about her to to kind of consider anything and I I don't have any way to have those Communications where I as I expressed last time I thought an attorney could be an advocate for her um I did send her the memorandum uh at least to her uh to the to the prison I don't know if she got it or not but I also filed it with the court so I I I tried to put everything that you have said to the best of my ability uh in in that memorandum so if you feel that she's been adequately informed I mean she does have the right to represent herself I also concur that I don't think it's the greatest idea um well I mean just out of caution because I don't want this reversed or vacated I mean not well I'm gonna give you another month to think about this Miss Valentine but if in a month you come back and you're ready to plead I will take your plea so let me explain to you again just for the second time you're not a stupid person but let me reiterate what the prosecutor just said the prosecutor is not offering you any deal sometimes a deal might look like you plead guilty to count one they dismiss count two but because the prosecutor doesn't know you doesn't know your situation doesn't know anything about you and there's no been no way for the prosecutor to communicate with you prior to this there's no deal on the table so you're being charged with two counts of insult of a prison employee each with a maximum of five years and they could be consecutive so the fact is that could add 10 years to your sentence I have the public defender on standby I'm not going to order the public defender to reach out to communicate with you I'm going to adjourn this out to mid January if you want to speak to the public defender you can send a communication to them what they would offer you what Mr emmens was implying is that they knew your situation maybe this maybe your defense might be this wasn't my fault I no idea but the fact is they can communicate anything you want them to communicate to the prosecutor which might then cause the prosecutor to offer you a deal don't know what that would be but it might be less time on the table for you so all that is just kind of to inform you of where we are today I'm GNA adjourn this also out to January 22nd and that time Miss Valentine if you have not reached out to the public defender if you have not reached out to the court or to Mr Emmons directly then I will at that time I will take your plea at that time as you have asked I have Mr put the phone number that for Valentine I would insult your intelligence by pretending like you don't know it wasn't my fault I'm just going to compl guilty I'm not interested in your deals and I really don't want to hear more words about it well if you want to talk more Miss Valentine the public defender phone number is 734 222 6970 all right I know so I'll see you back here on the 22nd at 1:30 Miss Valentine and at that time if you want to enter your plea we will go ahead through the formality of that and then uh we'll proceed then to sentence you okay sounds good all right you're all set thank you you can't fix stupid and thanks for hanging out with us on facts of frauds make sure you hit 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