STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. JUNE GORTHY
A-2678-09T2
We affirm a trial judge's refusal to allow a defendant who was otherwise competent to stand trial to waive the insanity defense. As called for in State v. Handy, 215 N.J. 334 (2013), the judge engaged in a thorough and searching inquiry of the defendant, her psychiatric history, and the circumstances of the offense. His conclusion was amply supported by the record. Despite defendant's competence to stand trial and to raise substantive defenses to other crimes simultaneously tried, she was unable to make a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent waiver of the insanity defense on the charge of stalking.
