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a < 4 606—SEPARATE 2 ILLINOIS v. ALLEN room disturbance. What a judge should do with a4 defendant whose courtroom antics may not be volitional is a perplexing problem which we should not reach ex- cept on a clear reeord. This defendant had no lawyer and refused one, though the trial judge properly insisted that a member of the bar be present to represent him. He tried to be his own lawyer and what transpired was pathetic, as well as disgusting and disgraccful. We should not reach the merits but should reverse the case for staleness of the record and affirm the denial of relief by the District Court. After all, behind the is- suance of a writ of habeas corpus is the exercise of an informed discretion. The question, how to proceed in a criminal case against a defendant who is a mental case, should be resolved only on a full and adequate record. Our real problems of this type lie not with this case but with other kinds of trials. Furst are the political trials. They frequently recur in our history * and insofar *From Spies v. People, 122 Ht. 1, involving the Haymarket Riots, in re Debs, 158 TE. S. 568, involving the Pullman strike, Mooney vy. Holohan, 294 U, 5, 103, involving the copper strikes of 1917; Sacco & Vanzetti v. State, 255 Mass. 369, 250 Masa. 128, 261 Maas. 12, involving the Red scare of the 20’s: to Dennis v. Umaited States, 341 U.S. 494, involving an agreement to teach Marxism. As to the Haymarket riot resulting in the Spies casc, see Com- mons, History of Labor in the United States, pn. 386 et seg. (1018); Swindler, Court & Constitution in the 20th Century, ce. 3 and 4 (1969). - As to the Pullman strike and the Debs case, see Pfeffer, This Honorable Court, pp. 215-216 (1966); Lindsey, The Pullman Strike, ec. ATT and XI (1942); Commons, History of Labor in the United States, pp. 502-508 (1915), As to the Afooney case, see the January 18, 1923, ixsue of The New Republic; Frost, The Mooney Case (1968). As to the Sacro-Vanzetti ease see Fraenkel, The Sacco-Vanzetti Case; Frankfurter, The Case of Sacco-Vanzetti. As to the repression of teaching mvolved in the Dennis case, sce Kirehheimer, Political Justice, pp. 152-158 (1961).