Teen in school-gun case deemed mentally incompetent
Mar. 14--A state psychologist has evaluated Joplin school-gun case defendant Thomas White as permanently unfit to assist in his own defense.
The opinion of Dr. Patricia Carter with the Missouri Department of Mental Health concerning the mental competence of 16-year-old White prompted the Jasper County prosecutor's office to ask a judge for permission to seek a second expert opinion. Circuit Judge David Mouton granted that request at a hearing Friday in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin.
White is accused of firing an assault rifle into the ceiling of a hallway at Memorial Middle School on Oct. 9, 2006, and repeatedly attempting to shoot the school's principal as he was ushering White out of the building.
White was 13 at the time of the incident, but was certified to stand trial as an adult. He faces two counts of first-degree assault and single counts of armed criminal action, discharging a firearm in a school building and attempted escape.
Carter evaluated White in recent months at the order of the judge. Her report was filed with the court on Feb. 25 and remains a closed portion of the case file.
Motions filed by the prosecutor's office and White's public defender since then indicate that the psychologist found White mentally incompetent to assist in his defense and likely to remain so "for the foreseeable future," in the language of a statute governing mental competence in court proceedings. State law allows either side to seek a second opinion and the Jasper County prosecutor's made that request.
"In a case such as this, I think you need to be absolutely sure," Prosecutor Dean Dankelson said following Friday's hearing. "In the medical community, people often seek a second opinion and I think it's appropriate that we do so in this case."
White's public defender, Brett Meeker, filed a motion of opposition. She told the judge at the hearing that the prosecutor's office should not be allowed to seek the opinion of another expert in the Department of Mental Health simply because it does not agree with the first state expert. The prosecutor's office was seeking an order that White be evaluated this time at the Western Missouri Mental Health Center in Kansas City.
"They need to pick a doctor that's not a DMH doctor to do it," Meeker said.
The judge agreed and ordered that an "outside" expert's opinion be sought and paid for by the state. Mouton said the second expert will have 30 days to evaluate White and submit a report to the court unless they can show good cause for needing more time. He also ordered that White in the meantime continue to receive treatment at Hawthorn Children's Psychiatric Hospital in St. Louis.
The mental-competency issue must be decided before a trial date can be set in the case. If the court decides he's not competent to assist in his defense, usually the state attorney general's office will step in and initiate guardianship proceedings. The proceedings would consider an array of placement options for the juvenile.
Meeker said she could not say if placement back in the community in the custody of his parents would be an option. She said that it would be up to the Department of Mental Health to make that determination. But, she said, the boy's parents are "obviously not going to be cut out of the picture, or anything like that."
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