LITTLE ROCK — A mentally ill capitalmurder defendant testified Wednesday that, advised by actor Morgan Freeman, he is battling demons to regain his role as king of Egypt.
A victory will not only return 34-year-old Harold Isaiah Charles II to the throne he held millions of years ago, he said, but also restore his magical powers over lightning and fire.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson gave state doctors 10 weeks to determine whether Charles, accused of killing his father, can be made competent to stand trial. It will be the fifth time doctors will evaluate Charles’ fitness to face prosecution.
Charles’ attorney, Lloyd Warford, put Charles on the stand Wednesday to demonstrate the extent of Charles’ mental illness.
Warford wanted the judge to issue a civil commitment against Charles, a ruling that could get him out of jail — where he’s been held for almost three years — and into the Arkansas State Hospital. With testimony that antipsychotic medication only dulls the voices — including Freeman’s — in Charles’ head, Warford said, at worst, his client is beyond help or, at best, too sick for state doctors to help within legal time limits.
Charles was arrested in July 2009 after telling police, who were investigating an altercation between Charles and his mother, that he killed his father in November 2000. The slaying of the elder Charles, 45, at his Warren Drive home had gone unsolved since the man was found stabbed to death two days after Thanksgiving 2000. The senior Charles’ bloodspattered 2-year-old daughter, was in the room with him, dehydrated in a dirty diaper.
Hospital doctors have examined Charles four times to determine whether he is competent for trial during the criminal proceedings. He was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic in December 2009, after which the court ordered him to the hospital for doctors to determine whether he could be made fit for trial.
Eight months later, he was found fit for trial after treatment and a second mental evaluation. That exam determined that while Charles was mentally ill at the time his father was killed, he knew the difference between right and wrong and was able to control his behavior, findings required to establish competency for trial.
His third evaluation was prompted by Warford’s discovery of medical records about Charles’ mental health history that state doctors had not known about at his first two evaluations.
Those records caused Charles’ third examining doctor, forensic psychologist Mark Peacock from the State Hospital, to rethink his January 2011 diagnosis that Charles was competent to stand trial. The records raised doubts about whether Charles would have been able to control his behavior because of mental illness at the time of his father’s death, Peacock reported, and also caused the doctor to question whether Charles had the ability to participate in a trial.
In the most recent examination, the fourth, filed on Tuesday, Peacock again found that Charles was not competent for trial.
At Wednesday’s two-hour hearing, both Peacock and Dr. Brian Rush Simpson, a State Hospital psychiatrist, testified that Charles’ mental state might be improved with treatment at the hospital, although neither said they were sure his illness could be alleviated sufficiently so he could stand trial.
Arkansas Code 5-2-310 regulates how much time can be spent trying to restore mentally ill defendants’ competency, Warford said. The law isn’t clear, he said, but has generally been construed to be 10 months to a year. Charles spent eight months in the custody of the hospital under court order, Warford told the judge, pointing out that Charles has also been on a State Hospital-dictated medication regimen for two years.
Deputy Prosecutor Will Jones disputed that time was expiring for Charles. Charles had only been treated at the State Hospital for 53 days out of the eight months the State Hospital had jurisdiction, Jones countered, telling the judge that Charles had spent the rest of the time in jail.
Noting that medical testimony indicated a possibility treatment could improve Charles’ mental health sufficiently for him to stand trial, the judge agreed to allow for a fifth mental examination, but imposed the deadline at Warford’s request, saying 10 weeks should be sufficient.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 05/31/2012