Tag: Thurston High

Springfield school killer denied new trial:

Speaking of Kip Kinkel, because you know we were, he has been denied a new trial.

Kinkel claimed he was too mentally ill to agree to a plea bargain that sent him to prison for more than 111 years. But the judge disagreed.

Kinkel argued his original defense attorneys and the trial judge should have ordered a mental competency evaluation before going ahead with the plea bargain.

But a lawyer for the attorney general’s office argued during a two-day hearing in June that Kinkel understood what was happening and was intelligent enough to calculate that his best chance for a reduced sentence was the plea deal.

Thank God for a responsible judge for once.

(Trench’s Note: I had this written up early yesterday but took the night off. Still, thanks to D.P. for thinking of me. 🙂 )

Oregon judge expects ruling on new Kinkel trial within 30 days:

There is more drama on the appeal of Kip Kinkel’s conviction and it’s starting to sound slightly familiar.

Two of the mental health experts involved in the case now say they should have recommended the evaluation, based on their lengthy interviews with Kinkel as a teenager.

Dr. Orin Bolstad, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. William Sack, a psychiatrist, testified Tuesday for Kinkel, arguing that he showed “classic signs” of paranoid schizophrenia, hearing voices and suffering delusions and hallucinations.

Bolstad and Sack say they believe his original attorneys should have raised the insanity defense instead of choosing the plea bargain.

Sack and Bolstad said Kinkel had become skilled at hiding his illness because he desperately wanted to appear normal and was too young to understand what was happening to him, fearing he would be labeled “retarded” — even though tests have shown him to be highly intelligent.

Kinkel’s new attorney, Larry Matasar, argued that any teenager who told doctors he was having paranoid delusions that he believed the Walt Disney Co. was trying to take over the world and that the government had implanted a computer chip in his brain — as Kinkel did — clearly was suffering from mental illness.

But his constant reference to hearing voices that made his life “a living hell” since the sixth grade should have put his attorneys and the judge on notice that a mental competency evaluation was needed, Matasar said.

“This young man was seriously ill,” Matasar said, “and it was during this time that his attorneys gave him the plea offer.”

Being able to “hide” paranoid schizophrenia reminds me of the trial of another school shooter John Jason McLaughlin. He tried arguing that he heard voices, had hallucinations and that he could hide his illness. That jury didn’t buy it and by all accounts, it sounded like the only illness he had been I’m-a-big-faker-ophrenia. Which is what it sounds like Kip Kinkel has too. Did the “voices” tell him to amass an illegal weapons cache for months prior to the murders or use explosives on animals? I seriously doubt it.

On Wednesday, the state offered testimony from a forensic psychologist, Dr. Eric Johnson, and a veteran Eugene trial attorney, Kelly Beckley, supporting Kinkel attorneys Richard Mullen and Mark Sabitt, along with the trial judge, Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Mattison.

Johnson said there was no indication from any mental health expert in the case — including the two defense experts — that Kinkel was incompetent because of his mental illness.

“In my opinion, they have presented a thoughtful and elegant theory, but they have pointed to no discernible evidence that I’m aware of,” Johnson said.

Beckley said Mullen and Sabitt, whom he has known for years, are both experienced criminal attorneys who have dealt with mentally ill clients, while Mattison took “extraordinary” steps to ensure that Kinkel understood all 58 counts of the plea bargain when it was read in court.

Beckley noted the judge said in an affidavit that he would have stopped the proceedings if he had any doubt at all about Kinkel’s competence.

The fact that this appeal is even going on is a disgrace.

The judge will rule within 30 days.

Does Kip Kinkel deserve a new trial — a new chance?:

This is an editorial about the prospect of a Kip Kinkel release. Most of it is just a recap of the situation so far with Kinkel’s lawyer appealing the conviction. However, the author has a great idea about how to limit such foolhardy exploits…

The sad thing about people like Kinkel and others like him is that they are wide awake when they commit these crimes but then have the financial wherewithal to force taxpayers into spending tens of thousands of dollars in responding to efforts by them and their benefactors to get them out of prison on “home” visits or permanently released. If they succeed in doing so with Kinkel, and he commits more heinous crimes, not anything like unlikely, the whole bunch of them, attorneys groveling after the big bucks and those willing to spend the big bucks to free this killer, should be locked up together with no recourse for appeal. Maybe that condition would serve to slow, even stop, the madness of the way those with wealth abuse justice in these United States.

We can always hope.

Kinkel lawyers seek new trial nine years later:

Trying to prove that no prison sentence is ever definite attorneys for parent killer and school shooter Kip Kinkel are trying to get him a new trial.

But his attorneys are still seeking to overturn Kinkel’s conviction and sentence. Their argument boils down to a relatively simple claim: Kinkel was mentally incapable of understanding his guilty plea.

Psychiatric experts hired by Kinkel’s legal team are scheduled to testify Tuesday that at the time of his plea in 1999, Kinkel’s mental health “had deteriorated so badly that he was seen curled up in a ball, hearing voices, and suffering from a panic attack,” according to court papers.

Given his condition, the U.S. Constitution requires that he get a new trial, Kinkel’s attorneys argue.

And he has an outstanding pillar of the community representing him…

Since then, Kinkel has obtained new lawyers, including Lawrence Matasar, a prominent Portland attorney whose clients range from former Portland Police Chief Derrick Foxworth to an Islamic charity worker accused of helping terrorists.

So let’s start with the revisionist history…

When state experts prepared to evaluate Kinkel in July 1999, his lawyers, as part of a “strategy to ensure that the state’s experts observed petitioner at the height of his mental illness,” ordered him to stop taking his medication, according to court papers. “As expected, petitioner’s mental illness worsened, his anxieties became more serious, and he began hearing the voices more frequently and more intensely.”

Days before his September trial was scheduled to begin, Kinkel started taking his anti-psychotic medications. But he received a low dosage, and it takes weeks for the medication to begin working, Matasar contends.

So when Kinkel considered his plea bargain, “he was in a psychotic state, mentally incompetent, unable to aid and assist in his own defense, and without the mental capacity to knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waive any constitutional rights,” according to court papers.

The state’s attorney’s office disagrees…

“A criminal defendant’s counsel is in the best position to evaluate a client’s comprehension of the legal proceedings against him or her,” according to court papers. “Petitioner’s counsel spent numerous hours interacting with petitioner, consulted petitioner’s treating psychologist regarding his fitness to proceed and consulted with petitioner’s expert witness.”

So let’s sum up. He killed his parents then killed 2 and wounded 25 at his school. Batshit crazy or not I have no problem with him serving a 112-year sentence.

However, having said that I would love to hear from anyone who thinks that this assclown deserves a new trial and why. I’ll even allow the mutants to comment.

Kip Kinkel moved from MacLaren to Salem prison:

Kip Kinkel, the infamous gunman of the Thurston High School shootings in Oregon, has been moved from a juvenile facility to an Oregon State prison. Kinkel had killed his parents in May of 1998 before going to school and opening fire in the high school killing two students. He was sentenced to 111 years behind bars. Kinkel, now 24, will be housed in the general population.