Several Supreme Court justices suggested Wednesday that defendants with a history of mental illness can be judged competent to stand trial or plead guilty, yet forfeit their constitutional right to represent themselves.

The court heard arguments in a case from Indiana in which a judge prevented a defendant from acting as his own lawyer at trial out of concern that the proceedings would become a farce.

Justice Stephen Breyer said that allowing judges' discretion in those cases could increase public confidence in the criminal justice system and reduce the number of "very disturbed people ending up in prison because they are disturbed, not because they're guilty."

Ahmad Edwards was convicted of attempted murder and other charges in 2005 for a shooting six years earlier at an Indianapolis department store.

Bullying in the workplace is incredibly common — a recent survey suggests more than one-third of employees have been bullied on the job. The problem is that the tactics used by workplace bullies usually are insidious and difficult to complain about. Often, the only way the bullying stops is when the victim quits.

Here’s a Workplace Aggression Research Questionnaire used by researchers from the State University of New York in New Paltz that identifies these often subtle bullying behaviors. Take the quiz to find out if you’re a victim of bullying. Occasional insults don’t count. Bullying occurs when the behavior has occurred consistently during the past six months.

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It's not clear why suicide rates spike in the spring, said ACEP President Dr. Linda L. Lawrence. But "we do know that suicide is the 11th leading cause of death for all ages in the United States, with one suicide occurring every 16 minutes or about 11 suicides per 100,000 people," she said in a prepared statement.

"Moreover, suicide is the second leading cause of death among 25- to 34-year-olds and the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds. Men take their own lives nearly four times more often than women, with men ages 75 and older having the highest rate of suicide, although over a lifetime, women attempt suicide two to three times as often as men," Lawrence said.

For every successful suicide attempt, there are 25 failed attempts that often leave people seriously injured and in need of medical care. More than 90 percent of all suicides are linked with a mood disorder or other psychiatric illnesses, which can be treated through behavioral therapy and medication, Lawrence said.

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Dr. John Kelsoe has spent his career trying to identify the biological roots of bipolar disorder. In December, he announced he had discovered several gene mutations closely tied to the disease, also known as manic depression.

Then Kelsoe, a prominent psychiatric geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, did something provocative for the buttoned-down world of academic medical research: He began selling bipolar genetic tests straight to the public over the Internet last month for $399.

His company, La Jolla-based Psynomics, joins a legion of startups racing to exploit the boom in research connecting genetic variations to a host of health conditions. More than 1,000 at-home gene tests have burst onto the market in the past few years.