An old saying bandied about in courthouses holds that...

An old saying bandied about in courthouses holds that a defendant who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client, but Akeem Muhammad's foolishness won him a chance to escape the death penalty for his conviction in a 1995 Broward County murder. In a 5-2 decision, the Florida Supreme Court threw out the Fort Lauderdale man's death sentence and ordered a new penalty phase in his trial because he did not tell his jury about his difficult childhood while representing himself. The court said a judge must take into account circumstances that might warrant a sentence of life in prison instead of death, even if the defendant wants to die. Muhammad, also known as Richard Michael Rinaldo, was convicted of gunning down Jimmy Lee Swanson, 34, in the street outside Ivory's convenience store in Fort Lauderdale on July 20, 1995. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. But Muhammad dismissed his penalty-phase counsel because he didn't want him to continue investigating his "extremely difficult childhood," in the words of the court. Muhammad spent many years of his early childhood in foster care. When he was a teenager, his mother had him committed to a mental hospital and then refused to pick him up when he was released. There was also evidence that Muhammad had a history of "serious psychological problems."