It shows cognizance of what is going on and what he's accused of. If he mean what if he refused to enter a plea, then that would depend why. If he thinks it means he can't be sent to trial, that's at least within the realm of understanding a legal position. A plea of not guilty would be entered in that case. If he thinks he's actually on Mars being tormented by demons, then he still isn't competent.
There's also a point where they have to decide whether he's malingering. That will probably be in a report that we will likely never see, unless Chris later presents it to prove he's sane or some other crazy Chris thing. I think all we'll ever know if he gets out of jail this year will be from his own mouth.
I think it's probably a combination of a near-complete misunderstanding of how court works (as evidenced by thinking he can go get his toys before proceeding), and magical thinking in the court.
It's perfectly normal for defendants to not understand their case initially, as a lot of peoples perception of court comes from mass media. Usually though, their attorney and the judge can explain what is going on well enough. The defendant is only required to understand what is necessary for their specific case.
For instance Chris could believe that the judge is illegitimate, because only Magi-chan is entitled to decide the case, but as long as he understood the procedure of what was happening, he'd still be competent.
On the other hand if he believed that Christine was actually in CWCville in C-197 and Sonichu was inhabiting his body in Dimension 1218, he might be unable to competently assist in his defense.
The standard for this was set in
Dusky v United States, which involved a defendant with schizophrenia.
This precedent gives Chris the right to a competency evaluation. From near as I can tell, the court agreed that Chris failed the competency evaluation, and is now in a six month period where they attempt to restore his competency. The prosecution probably did not put in much of an effort to contest this, as it means Chris will remain in custody for 1-5 years, which is what he'd probably receive in a sentence anyway. The prosecutor isn't really under any pressure from the public to secure a conviction quickly, as it's not constantly in the media, and he can just work on prosecuting other cases for the next six months.
Consolvo is up for re-election in 2023. It's conceivable his opponent could bring up Chris' case, and he could feel pressured to bring the case to an end before then, but that's plenty of time to send Chris back to the hospital for another 6 month stint and reevaluate him in late January if need be.
The notion that the Commonwealth of Virginia is spending a lot of resources to get Chris to admit he fucked his mother, sending him to an already short staffed and low funded mental health system that is already heavily taxed by your average criminal, which must be Steven Hawking level clever beyond Chris's current experience just seems out of place. The only thing I can think of is that he just went so out of control that no male lawyer or male judge, etc... can get through to him. The man's had 40 years of skating the system and I can't imagine his lawyer pleading with him to "just say you did it", which seems to be the crux of the legal arguments of why Chris is where he is.
To the legal eagle here, how exactly has Chris's case blown the lid of any other case they've been purvey to? Is there going to be a "Chris Chan" defense coming up in future legal battles that will make it into the Legal Intelligencer? Did the Greene County Tard just play the legal system like a cheap harmoica that even Heilberg can't figure out and has to play the loophole game with?
There are other tards who have been in Chris' exact position. He's not that unusual -- the only thing special about Chris is his notoriety for how interesting his delusions are, and how much he shares them.
If Terry Davis were in court for something similar, instead of being a meat crayon, something similar would probably be happening to him.
they put the case off for years before finally declaring him sane enough for trial.
