Accused Killer Loses Right to Represent Self

An Orange County Superior Court judge Friday revoked accused mass murderer Charles Ng’s right to represent himself, accusing the defendant of playing “games within games within games” in an attempt to delay the start of his Sept. 1 trial.

“You’re not preparing for trial. It seems what you’ve been doing is spending time and money delaying the trial,” said Judge John J. Ryan.

Ryan had ruled May 15 that Ng could act as his own attorney, reversing a decision the judge had made less than a month before. That ruling came after Ng maintained that he neither trusted nor liked Orange County Deputy Public Defenders William G. Kelley and James Merwin, who had been assigned to help him fight charges that he tortured and murdered 12 people in Northern California in the mid-1980s.

On Friday morning, Ng asked to postpone his hearing, maintaining that he had been awake all night and as a result was too fatigued and confused to continue.

Throughout the hearing, Ng seemed unprepared to either ask or answer questions. He told Ryan that he did not understand the court proceedings, often pausing for minutes before speaking and occasionally remaining silent even when the judge addressed him directly.

Ng asked the court to allow him to call a mental health expert to the stand to “describe how my thinking today is affected by the fatigue . . . factor,” but Ryan refused, calling Ng crafty rather than confused.

“You don’t look tired. You don’t sound confused,” Ryan said. “The breakdown, Mr. Ng, is your refusal to cooperate with any attorney the court has appointed for you.”

Ng also asked to postpone the trial, a matter Ryan agreed to take up again next Friday.

Prosecutors allege that Ng, 37, and Leonard Lake committed the murders on Lake’s property in Calaveras County in the Sierra foothills. Lake killed himself, and Ng fled to Canada.

He was captured there but fought a six-year battle against extradition before he was returned to California in 1991. Canada does not have the death penalty.

Three years later, the case was moved from Calaveras County to Orange County because of the extensive publicity about the murders. But since being brought back to this country, Ng has won numerous delays by disqualifying judges and attorneys.

Ryan reinstated Merwin and Kelley as Ng’s attorneys Friday but said that before the trial begins, he would be willing to hear Ng’s arguments for representing himself, if the defendant so desired.