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September 10, 2013Concussion program set for Thursday
September 10, 2013
Jeremiah Wright, the Thibodaux man accused of beheading his special-needs son in 2011, will return to court Monday for a status hearing related to his competency to stand trial.
The state-run hospital tasked with rehabilitating Wright’s mental state has again discharged the suspect as competent to rationally defend himself against a first-degree murder charge, attorneys said.
Kerry Cuccia, the lead attorney representing Wright with the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, would not comment on whether he agreed with the hospital’s findings, saying he expects presiding District Judge John LeBlanc to set a date at the Sept. 16 hearing for Wright’s second competency hearing to begin.
Six months lapsed between the first time the hospital discharged Wright and the beginning of that competency hearing. Such hearings require prosecutors to prove the suspect has the mental condition to proceed to trial.
“I would obviously like to get a much quicker hearing date than we did last time,” District Attorney Cam Morvant II said. Morvant said he has read the hospital’s preliminary report but has not spoken to doctors. Because the report hadn’t been filed into the court’s record, Morvant could not comment on its contents. He also said he was unsure whether the same primary doctors supervised Wright’s second stint at the hospital.
Wright, 32, has not yet entered a plea. He was returned to the Lafourche Parish Detention Center Aug. 30.
In August 2011, Wright allegedly confessed to investigators that he killed 7-year-old Jori Lirette, who had cerebral palsy, was fed through a tube and used a wheelchair for mobility. Jori’s severed head was found near the road in front of Wright’s rented West Seventh Street home, and his limbs were found in garbage bags.
Two months later, District Judge John LeBlanc, based on sealed testimony from an appointed sanity commission, ruled Wright was incompetent to stand trial and remitted him to East Louisiana Mental Health System’s forensic division in Jackson, La.
After nine months at the hospital, Wright returned to LeBlanc’s courtroom earlier this year for his first competency hearing.
The hearing lasted six days, and after reviewing at least 60 pieces of evidence and testimony from 11 witnesses commenting on more than 5,000 pages of documentation, LeBlanc again ruled that Wright was not fit for trial.
While establishing that Wright understands the nature of the charge against him and can help to an extent in his defense, LeBlanc listed four elements of Louisiana Supreme Court-derived criteria used to determine a suspect’s mental capacity to stand trial that he said Wright did not meet.
“In light of all of the evidence and testimony, the Court finds that Jeremiah Lee Wright does not have the ability to maintain a consistent defense, to listen to witnesses and inform his lawyers of distortions or misstatements, to make simple decisions in response to well explained alternatives, and to testify in his own defense, if necessary,” the ruling reads.
Mark Wilson, a psychiatrist who examined Wright the entire nine months, and Glenn Ahava, a psychologist who examined Wright for four months, discharged Wright the first time and co-authored a report, perhaps the keystone piece of evidence declaring Wright fit for trial.
Wright’s defense attorneys with the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, Cecilia Bonin and Mildred Methvin attacked the doctors’ opinions, presentation of evidence and credibility through cross-examination.
LeBlanc referenced similar concerns throughout his 27-page judgment.
“Perhaps out of an abundance of caution they went through the Bennett criteria (the court-derived guideline to determine competency) and made findings that he could assist his counsel,” LeBlanc said of Ahava and Wilson. “However, the many issues, inaccuracies, omissions, and concerns regarding their testimony and their findings in the Competency Restoration Report affect their credibility and bear negatively on the weight of their opinions.”
LeBlanc determined that some tests were conducted improperly and questioned repeated notations referencing a test one ELMHS doctor – who was no longer employed with the hospital – declared invalid.
LeBlanc also noted that a conversation Wright allegedly had with Ahava weighed heavily upon the decision to discharge. When talking to the doctor, Wright supposedly referred to Jori as his “son” and “a real person,” which marked a deviation from his widely cited delusion that Jori was an inhuman component of a government-sponsored social experiment being conducted upon Wright.
“This conversation, in conjunction with Dr. Ahava’s opinion that Wright never had a major mental illness, was sufficient to convince Dr. Ahava that Wright had been restored to competency,” LeBlanc wrote.
Next week’s status hearing is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., Sept. 16, at the 17th Judicial District Courthouse, Division A.
Jeremiah Wright is escorted to his competency hearing by Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Deputies. Wright is accused of the first-degree murder of Jori Lirette, his 7-year-old disabled son.
