Death row inmate's makes bizarre request to join execution PRIORITY LINE
A South Carolina death row inmate has asked a federal judge to allow him to become his own attorney in the hopes of expediting his execution.
James Robertson, 51, is looking to represent himself after his best friend and four other death row inmates were all put to their deaths in the past year.
Robertson, 51, has been on death row since 1999 after killing both his parents, Terry and Earl Robertson, in their Rock Hill home.
He blinded his father with bathroom cleaner and beat him to death with the claw end of a hammer and a baseball bat, before stabbing his mother to death.
Robertson tried to make it look like a robbery in hopes he would get his part of their $2.2 million estate, prosecutors said.
A federal judge has ordered a 45-day delay in his request so a lawyer can talk to him and make sure he really wants to fire his own attorneys.
He had sent a one-page letter to a judge's mailbox which said that he and his lawyer had a difference in opinion.
Since 'no ethical attorney will withdraw an appeal that will result in their client's execution,' Robertson said he was ready to represent himself.
Robertson's attorney Emily Paavola responded in court documents that Robertson wasn't taking medication for depression.
She also said he suffered from chronic back pain and a skin condition that made him more depressed and was distressed over those five executions that dropped the close-knit death row population from 30 to 25.
His best friend on death row Marion Bowman Jr. was killed by lethal injection on January 31 of this year.
Paavloa asked the judge to hold off on Robertson's request for four months so he could have a full psychiatric evaluation to decide if he is mentally competent.
Prosecutors suggested the judge could talk to Robertson on her own and decide if was able to act as his own lawyer.
Judge Mary Gordon Baker decided to have a different lawyer talk to Robertson, making sure he understands the implications and consequences of his decision and report back by early July.
Back in the early 2000s, Robertson also sought to drop all his appeals. He told a judge at the time he thought he got the better end of the deal with a death sentence instead of life in prison without parole and he had been let down by every lawyer he had encountered since his arrest.
A judge asked Robertson at a 2002 hearing about his friend Michael Passaro's decision to volunteer for the death chamber.
Robertson said: 'It hasn't changed my view. What it did was it made me understand - enhanced reality a bit - to see my best friend go from one day playing cards with me to the next day not being here any more.
'He basically has taken a similar route that I'm choosing to take now and we spoke often about his decision.'
Volunteers, as they are called in death penalty circles, have been around since the death penalty was reinstated 50 years ago.
About 10% of all U.S. executions are inmates who agree to die before finishing all their appeals, according to statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center.
According to The Herald, prosecutors arrested Robertson in Philadelphia following the killings after fleeing South Carolina up the east coast alongside his girlfriend.
The outlet reported that Robertson left a trail of evidence as he headed north, including bloody clothes at a Maryland rest stop.
His 1999 trial was broadcast on CourtTV and since then there has been numerous TV specials and a true crime book about the case.
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