Like any taxpayers, we don’t like to see court cases that are appealed and then sent back to a lower court, only to extend the case and its costs.

Particularly when the reversal is due to a judge’s error.

We’re no lawyers, of course, but we wonder whether a recent decision from Madison Circuit Court Judge Frederick Spencer will be visiting the Court of Appeals.

Spencer’s decision came during a hearing for Donald Johnson, 77, accused in the May shooting death of his ex-wife, Fredericka J. Smith, 67.

Johnson’s attorney, Bob Cowles, asked that two or three psychiatrists be appointed by the court to evaluate Johnson’s mental competency to stand trial.

Deputy Prosecutor Pat Ragains said Johnson seemed mentally sound when he spoke to investigators after the shooting.

However, Ragains went on to tell Spencer that “it wouldn’t hurt” for psychiatrists to evaluate Johnson.

We agree — it wouldn’t hurt.

“Yeah, it would hurt,” said Spencer in denying Cowles’ request.

“It would cost me a thousand bucks for a couple of shrinks. That’s what it would hurt. I don’t have money to waste. The prosecutor’s office is not going to pay it.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful. It doesn’t hurt anything. We just don’t have the money to waste.”

Unlike Judge Spencer, we’re not so sure we could determine a value on a defendant’s rights and certainly not so early into the proceedings. The fate of a defendant should not be decided by costs but by a jury presented with all facts available.

Where’s the line drawn here? Does a poor client get fewer favorable court rulings than a rich one? Does an older defendant receive fewer chances to obtain evidence than a younger one?

Or do we wait for an appellate court to make those decisions?

Just two years ago, the Indiana Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Duane Redding, who had also been tried in Spencer’s court. Redding had been encountered by a girl at a restaurant who told her family that Redding molested her two or three years earlier when she was six.