Mukasey Oversees Role Reversal of Prosecutors, Defense

In one of his final rulings as a judge, Michael Mukasey questioned Justice Department efforts to prosecute a delusional woman who was accused of serving as an agent for Saddam Hussein. Judging the woman harmless, he refused to force her to take the antipsychotic drugs that might have made her sane enough to stand trial. That 2006 decision ended the prospect of a trial, and the government's case against the woman, Susan Lindauer, appeared to have come to an end.

Not so. The case is back the hands of Mr. Mukasey, who is now the attorney general. His Justice Department is grappling with how to respond to a bizarre twist in the case: Ms. Lindauer is demanding to be tried, even though Judge Mukasey had basically let her off the hook back in 2006.

The result is a strange case of role reversal between prosecutors and defense lawyers.

At a hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, a lawyer for a visibly deranged and distraught Ms. Lindauer, Brian Shaughnessy, sought to convince a judge that Ms. Lindauer was competent to stand trial. Meanwhile, a top federal terrorism prosecutor, Edward O'Callaghan, tried to convince Judge Loretta Preska, that Ms. Lindauer was indeed insane. He pointed out that "eight reviewing doctors found her to be suffering from serious mental illness."

With the Justice Department giving no signal that it would withdraw the indictment, Judge Preska will have to decide what to do when a defendant demands a trial and prosecutors seek to avoid one.

It is not exactly clear why Ms. Lindauer, 44, a former journalist and congressional staffer, is seeking to be tried, given that Mr. Mukasey, as a judge, ruled against a trial. Defendants often seek to be declared unfit to stand trial, which heads off the prospect of a guilty verdict, and routinely have their motions denied. Lawyers say it is unheard of for a defendant who has been found mentally ill, as Ms. Lindauer has, to go to court and demand a trial.

Although Mr. Shaughnessy, the defense lawyer, declined to comment yesterday, comments by Ms. Lindauer suggest that she wants to clear her name. Outside of court yesterday, she told reporters she was "supervised by individuals tied to intelligence" and had been "left out to dry and scapegoated" by her own country.

She does deny at least some of the government's allegations, which include that she traveled to Iraq, received payment from Saddam's government, and sought to influence a distant relation of hers who worked in the White House. During the court hearing, Mr. O'Callaghan claimed that Ms. Lindauer had accepted thousands of dollars from the Iraqi government, which prompted Ms. Lindauer to turn around and give a sweeping "thumbs down" signal to the audience in the courtroom.

Ms. Lindauer, of Maryland, did not testify yesterday. Two witnesses, a computer science professor and former journalist who were acquaintances of Ms. Lindauer in the 1990s, were called to speak about their impressions of her mental state. But much of the hearing consisted of Mr. O'Callaghan quizzing the witnesses on some of the more outlandish pronouncements Ms. Lindauer had made to her mental evaluators, including that she regularly was visited with prophecies.

When Mr. O'Callaghan mentioned that Ms. Lindauer claimed to have been the "chief negotiator" during diplomatic discussions with Libya, Ms. Lindauer turned to the audience in court and nodded, affirming that this was indeed her belief.