What happens when a defendant, previously ruled incompetent to stand trial for murder, is suddenly declared to be competent--20 years later? He goes to trial. In a capital case. Representing himself.

This is the story of Richard Taylor, who stands trial this week for murdering a prison guard in 1981. Taylor had been declared incompetent and has been medicated ever since. Now the Judge says he can go to trial.

Taylor is acting as his own attorney. He has a plan for his trial. He will do nothing and say nothing.

This is how the 43-year-old inmate plans to serve as his own attorney in a Williamson County capital murder trial. It will be a reprise of a 1984 proceeding that saw Taylor convicted and sentenced to death, a case that in the intervening two decades has produced a post-conviction review of the defendant's complex and lengthy mental-health history, revelations of inmate torture in a Tennessee prison, an overturning of his death sentence, the setting aside of the conviction and an appellate court review.

Were Taylor ever deemed competent in the future, the courts determined, he could stand trial again. Now, in the opinion of Williamson County Chancery Court Judge Russell Heldman, that day has come. Jury selection is slated to begin Tuesday.