Why in the world would a judge dismiss charges against a man for sexual assault because he was found not competent to stand trial?

There aren’t enough details provided on the judge’s reasons for dismissal of the charges.

Good point.

If he isn’t competent to stand trial, shouldn’t they proceed to sentencing anyway?

Fill a moon bounce with helium and send him to the moon.

If you think that is bad, some gang rapists were once acquitted, because the judge ruled that the victim was too ugly for them to be interested in raping her.

Those are my thoughts Yelladog.

He isn’t criminally guilty, one cannot be convicted if one is not competent to stand trial. It’s part of one’s constitutional rights.

That doesn’t mean he gets to go free, it means he can be ordered to a hospital for the criminally insane.

But apparently he didn’t go to a hospital.

Well, no one asked me—but no matter how mentally incompetent someone is, they have to understand the fear, pain, and death of their victim, and basic human rights no not sexually violate someone.

This one is a monster, and needs to be put to death.
At the very least, never let out of strict custody. no freedom, no furlough, no release. Ever.

I agree @Yellowdog.

no matter how mentally incompetent someone is, they have to understand the fear, pain, and death of their victim, and basic human rights no not sexually violate someone.

He may not be capable of understanding right and wrong, he may not have the capacity to understand the devastation caused by his actions.

And we don’t condemn people who cannot comprehend those things.

We should lock them up tho.

If he’s not competent to stand trial, he wasn’t competent enough to know that what he was doing was wrong.

But he should not have been released back into society.

In my opinion, he should be in ether a psych ward or a locked home for developmentally disabled. If he doesn’t know right from wrong that’s not his fault but that shouldn’t trump the public’s need for safety from him. This type of thing sometimes produced a public outcry for the judge to be removed, when someone is allowed to walk free and they harm someone else (especially a child).

He should have been locked up, so the question is why not. I googled a little and cannot find anything more on the February decision.

1)
Kentucky law is clear that he could not be tried:
‘No defendant who is incompetent to stand trial shall be tried, convicted or sentenced so long as the incompetency continues.’

2)
The law also says…
‘if the defendant is charged with a felony, he shall be committed to a forensic psychiatric facility’

3) and…

‘If the court finds the defendant incompetent to stand trial but there is no substantial probability he will attain competency in the foreseeable future, it shall conduct an involuntary hospitalization proceeding’

@Dutchess_lll So you would have him locked up, violating his civil rights. Maybe we should lock up all children for the same reason…

He raped a woman in 2017 and bit off part of her face.
He was released.
Now, 2 years later he hit an 8 year old girl over the head with a shovel and then raped the child.
To answer your question, @kritiper, yes. In a heartbeat.

He certainly understood that its wrong to shatter the skull of someone—especially someone that small.

@Yellowdog How do you know that? Really, how do you know that?

There is a good chance he didn’t understand that @Yellowdog, any more than a gorilla would understand THAT it’s wrong.

You can know that since it hurts to have your own skull cracked that it would hurt someone else.

You would know that a person smaller than you is weaker and if anything, needs care and protection—if you are smart enough to see it as prey, you can recognize it is vulnerable.

As for gorillas, that’s why we have protection from them. well, them from us at least. well, not even that really, but you get the point.

@Yellowdog that requires higher thinking. He is severely mentally challenged. He is closer to having the IQ of what we would expect from lower primates.
No, I don’t get your point. Would you expect a gorilla to have empathy such as you’re describing?

My point is that there is separation so that gorillas and humans can’t hurt each other.

Then, as I was writing, I realized there really isn’t any protection. We are all fair game. Everything can do whatever it wants.

That wasn’t the question. Do you expect a gorilla, or a chimp, to have the kind of empathy you are expecting from a human who has about the same IQ as a gorilla and maybe lower than a chimps.

Well then, to answer you’re original question, why “in the world” isn’t good enough.

To understand the reasoning of this judge who turned him loose the first time, the thinking is really OUT of this world.

the mentally challenged individual should not be ABLE to kill an eight year old girl, due to being separated from the opportunity, much as gorillas. Or chimps. Gorillas don’t normally kill people.

I see news articles state it was Judge Annie O’Connell who let him go last time.

Here’s her website. She’s also on Facebook. I am betting she’s getting a lot of heat for her prior decision. I haven’t checked FB but if I were a betting person…..

http://annieoc.com/

Well, what a great reason to release a violent, sexually depraved animal. He’s just “out of this world.” I agree they should be locked up, but still doesn’t answer the question @Yellowdog. i’m trying to help you understand that not all humans have the kind of empathy you’re trying to insist he had to have had, so could be held accountable. He doesn’t know that what he did was wrong. All he knows is he got some sort of satisfaction from it.

Thanks @jca2. I’ll go look.

I do not understand how him being unable to understand his constitutional rights is grounds for turning him loose back onto the world to rape more women and children.

I see she was just elected for an 8 year term.

https://ballotpedia.org/Annie_O%27Connell

I’m guessing he won’t be walking the streets any time soon.

What I’m saying is I have no doubt the judge didn’t have any choice in how she came to her determination. I just don’t understand how our constitution could allow for something like that. The other women, he bit part of her face off as he was raping her! He’s a viscous animal. He belongs in the pound to be euthanized.

The judge serves the society—that’s us. If the society fails to isolate the man from his victims, the judge must nevertheless follow the rules we have set regarding people WE stipulate not responsible for their behavior.

But we can’t isolate the man on our own. We have to do so within the law. We have to follow the rules to. That’s why we have judges.

Our problem is that there isn’t enough information given to even guess where the system failed. It could be anything from a bureaucratic foul up to a misdiagnosis, a relapse from failure to take his medication. Who knows?

He needs to be monitored 24/7. How did he wind up unsupervised in the presence of an 8 year old girl in the first place?
But you’re so right. We just don’t know the details.