Ray v. State
| Decision Date | 27 August 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 145, September Term, 2008.,145, September Term, 2008. |
| Citation | 978 A.2d 736,410 Md. 384 |
| Parties | John Wesley RAY v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
George E. Burns, Jr., Assistant Public Defender (Nancy S. Forster, Public Defender, of Baltimore), on brief, for appellant.
James E. Williams, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, of Baltimore), on brief, for appellee.
Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, MURPHY, ADKINS and BARBERA, JJ.
In this case, we are asked to interpret the words "extraordinary cause" embedded in Section 3-107 of the Criminal Procedure Article, Maryland Code (2001, 2007 Supp.), which mandates dismissal of charges against a defendant, who, having been found incompetent to stand trial, remains so for a period of time, such as five years in the present case.1 Specifically, John Wesley Ray, Petitioner, was indicted in the Circuit Court for Harford County for attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and second-degree assault. On January 2, 2002, Ray was adjudged incompetent to stand trial and was committed to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which designated him to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital in Jessup.2 After five years elapsed, Ray filed a motion to dismiss the charges pursuant to Section 3-107(a), and a hearing was held in the Circuit Court for Harford County, during which psychiatrists testified that Ray remained "dangerous," but could be restored to competency to stand trial in the relatively near future. The judge denied Ray's motion to dismiss his charges, because he found that the seriousness of Ray's charges, coupled with his dangerousness and restorability, constituted "extraordinary cause" to extend the time within which the charges were to be maintained. Ray appealed and petitioned this Court for immediate review, whereupon we granted the petition and issued a writ of certiorari, Ray v. State, 406 Md. 744, 962 A.2d 370-71 (2008), prior to any proceedings in the Court of Special Appeals, to address the following question:
Did the trial court err in finding "extraordinary cause" to refuse to dismiss an incompetent defendant's charges without any "extraordinary" predicate?
We shall hold that the judge erred in finding "extraordinary cause," under Section 3-107 of the Criminal Procedure Article, and shall reverse the denial of Ray's motion to dismiss.3
On February 27, 2001, John Wesley Ray was indicted by a Harford County Grand Jury for attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and second-degree assault, stemming from a confrontation with a girlfriend. Prior to trial, Ray entered a plea of not criminally responsible ("NCR"), after which he was ordered to undertake a psychiatric evaluation to determine if he was competent to stand trial. In January of 2002, a judge concluded that Ray was not competent to stand trial, and Ray was committed to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which ultimately placed him at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital in Jessup, Maryland, where he has since lived. Annual evaluations related to Ray's incompetency have been filed each December with the Circuit Court.
On January 5, 2007, five years after Ray had been found incompetent to stand trial, Ray's counsel filed a motion to dismiss criminal charges pursuant to Section 3-107(a) of the Criminal Procedure Article, in which he argued that the charges had to be dropped because of the passage of time. The State opposed the motion to dismiss, arguing that the charges needed to be extended, because Ray continued to be both incompetent and dangerous, but restorable — conditions constituting "extraordinary cause." A hearing to address whether the charges should be maintained because of "extraordinary cause" was held in October of 2007, during which the State offered the testimony of four forensic psychiatrist experts,4 as well as two law enforcement officers and the victim's husband, in addition to hundreds of letters written by Ray while he was committed.
Dr. Angela Kim-Lee, Director of Pretrial Services at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital, testified that Ray had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, that in the early stages of his treatment, Ray was under the belief that the FBI and different government agencies were conspiring against him, but that with treatment, in particular with antipsychotic medications, including Rispiridone and Geodon, his paranoid beliefs had diminished over time. She stated that in 2005, she had believed that he was competent to stand trial and took a first step by referring him for a pretrial criminal responsibility evaluation, but that during the course of that evaluation, he had expressed paranoid beliefs that the victim of the crime was still trying to poison him; she explained that the pretrial evaluator ultimately determined that he remained not competent to stand trial. As of September 2007, Dr. Kim-Lee considered Ray to be "dangerous," based on prior hospitalization for mental illness, stemming from violent encounters based on paranoid beliefs and his conduct while at Perkins:
There were other hospitalizations prior to his admission at Perkins. Two specific hospitalizations at Fallston General Hospital, one in 1993 and one in 1994, and the hospital records from those admissions talk about Mr. Ray having an explosive temper, having periods of rage followed by memory loss. Two admissions occurred in the context of dangerous behavior. The first one was in 1993 was a result of Mr. Ray attacking his brother-in-law and then claiming no memory of it. The second hospitalization was reported to be also in the context of him having violent thoughts towards others. There were charges of assault and battery pending against him at the time as a result of the fight and there was also a charge of sexual assault against his daughter who was apparently two at that time. So there is a history of psychotic or of psychiatric hospitalizations that predates the current admission in Perkins.
His admission in Perkins as we all know precipitated from the instant offense which Mr. Ray in our opinion continues to hold paranoid, delusional beliefs about the victim in the offense. . . . He has in the past acted on his symptoms by example of not resulting in his current arrest for the instant offense but he has also wrote numerous letters to various government agencies, various officials articulating his paranoid, delusional beliefs. He has a history of becoming agitated and threatening. He has contacted the victim during his hospitalization despite being told and aware that he is not only to do that against her wishes and the victim has perceived these contacts as threatening and has come to the point over the years that the hospital has had to restrict him from phone use. There is also an incident in which he had his mail supervised because he was sending unwanted communications or letters to a female at Howard County Detention Center.
She also evaluated Ray as lacking "insight into his mental illness" and opined that he would discontinue medication if released from Perkins. Dr. Kim-Lee testified further that in her opinion Ray was "restorable" to competency through further treatment and trials of antipsychotic medications:
It's my opinion Mr. Ray is considered restorable. He has a history of being restored in our Hospital, certainly responding, improving with treatment and there is no reason to doubt that he would not respond to treatment. He has only had a limited trial of a couple antipsychotic medications. There are a number of other alterative medications out there in addition to his current treatment plan he is getting.
* * *
[B]ased on his history of treatment. . . . he has demonstrated significant improvements from his previous mental state with the medication and so I think it's reasonable clinically to expect that he would continue to improve with continued treatment and trials of medication.
Dr. Ana N. Cervantes, a staff psychiatrist at Perkins and supervisor of those patients at the Institution who had been determined to be incompetent to stand trial, testified that she agreed with Dr. Kim-Lee that Ray was both "dangerous" and "restorable" and specifically expounded on the "restorable" characterization:
[Dr. Cervantes]: [T]he basis for my opinion [that Ray is restorable] is twofold. He has been restored in the past. In 2005 he was at the point where he was able to meet the standard for competent to stand trial. That wasn't sustained, but he was able to get there. And also it is my opinion that after speaking with him in October that he was certainly able to provide a large amount of relevant information, show that he was able to cooperate and assist in his defense more so than he had demonstrated in previous reports and it's my opinion that part of the reason we have not been able to obtain as much information as we would like is his lack of cooperation as opposed to psychotic symptoms only. . . . I mean that Mr. Ray chooses who he wishes to speak with and who he doesn't wish to speak with.
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[State's Attorney]: And do you have any other basis for your opinion he is restorable to competency in the reasonably near future?
[Dr. Cervantes]: Well, I believe there is evidence that he is responding partially to his current treatment regiment and also in reviewing his medication he has received while at Clifton Perkins he certainly has not had an exhaustive trial of all the available antipsychotic medications or combinations thereof. He has only been on two antipsychotic medications. I believe currently he is on one. The[re] was a very recent medication change and I understand that there are plans to change medications at this particular time again. So certainly he has not had what we would consider an exhaustive trial of all the available medications that are used to treat this illness.
The State then called ...
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