No Way to Appeal? ‘<i> Way</i> ,’ Judge Replies : Courts: Appellate jurist borrows ‘Wayne’s World’ watchword in dismissing case against Lake Forest man held as incompetent.

Reaching into the hit movie “Wayne’s World” for wording, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled 3-0 Thursday that authorities were wrong when they declared a homeless man incompetent for trial after only a brief examination by a psychiatrist in the Orange County Jail.

James J. Garrett was arrested in Lake Forest after an altercation over aluminum cans in the parking lot of a motel. He refused to speak to anyone while handcuffed, explaining later in a letter to a Superior Court judge that his reason was that the restraints “make it virtually impossible for a poor person to get a fair trial.”

That judge dismissed misdemeanor assault and battery charges against Garrett and released him, accepting a prosecution motion that he was incompetent to stand trial but rejecting a recommendation that he be placed in Patton State Hospital.

However, in his appeal, Garrett said that there was insufficient evidence for him to be declared incompetent.

The appellate justices noted that the state attorney general’s office did not respond to the merits of Garrett’s appeal, saying only that because Garrett was released he had no grounds to appeal. “No way,” the attorney general concluded.

“ Way ,” replied Associate Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr., using the best-known expression from “Wayne’s World” and the long-running “Saturday Night Live” TV show.

Crosby added that “the Attorney General advances no logical reason why a defendant incompetent to stand trial cannot appeal that finding merely because no hospital commitment is involved.”

In other action, the appeals court affirmed 3-0 that a trial judge retains the right to strike the sentencing enhancement for the use of a firearm, despite a statute that had left the matter ambiguous and the subject of a number of appeals by prosecutors.