For the second time in less than a year, a Nashville man charged with attacking a foreign exchange student with a hatchet in downtown Nashville has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
On Jan. 20, Judge Judith Stewart decided that Dana M. Ericson, 60, cannot assist his public defender in his defense. Two doctors — Dr. George Parker and Dr. Don Olive — interviewed and evaluated Ericson for a second time and both concluded he was not competent.
A person must be able to understand the proceedings against them and assist in preparation of their defense in order to stand trial.
Ericson does understand the nature of the proceedings against him, Parker testified during the Jan. 17 hearing. He said he believed Ericson would be restored to competency quickly if he was moved to a state hospital from the Brown County jail.
Ericson was charged with attempted murder after police say he hit 18-year-old Yue “Z” Zhang in the back with a hatchet last year while she was taking pictures for a class in downtown Nashville.
He told police he was attempting “ethnic cleansing” and called himself a white supremacist.
Ericson blamed that statement, which police said he made after his arrest, on “black magic” the Brown County Sheriff’s Department used against him. He said he had no recollection of the attack.
“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” Ericson said of his statement, describing himself as a “harmless, gentle, loving man.”
Ericson has been in the county jail with limited access to mental health care since August, when he was transferred back from the Logansport State Hospital. That’s where he was sent when Stewart ruled him incompetent to stand trial in April.
In a typed letter to Stewart from the state hospital, Ericson said he had made “substantial progress” in his recovery.
But in hand-scrawled letters the court received throughout September and December after he was moved back to the county jail, Ericson claimed he was being over-medicated and was in need of therapy. In other recent letters, he claimed there was a conspiracy against him and his family that caused him to attack the girl.
Parker said he found Ericson to be incompetent because of those letters.
At his hearing, Ericson also spoke of a conspiracy and “the revolution” he said he’d like to start. “I need medical attention. I need freedom to seek appropriate medical attention,” he said.
For 90 days, Ericson will be committed to the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction in an attempt to restore his competency. Within 90 days, the state institution will notify the court whether Ericson has a substantial probability of becoming competent again, according to Stewart’s order.
His jury trial, which was scheduled for Feb. 15, has been postponed and no new date set.
In October, Ericson’s attorney, public defender Jacob Moore, filed a notice of defense of mental disease or defect, commonly known as the insanity defense.
But Ericson needs to be found competent before any path can proceed, said Timothy Morrison, an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
“Once you’re found to be incompetent, then the whole procedure just stops until you are reestablished as competent. Then if you are reestablished as competent, then he could pursue the insanity defense,” Morrison said.
‘Grave concerns’
During the hearing, Stewart expressed “grave concerns” about Ericson being returned to the Brown County jail.
“You need mental health services we can’t provide in jail,” Stewart told Ericson.
In a Nov. 30 email to Stewart and Adams, Jail Commander Tony Sciscoe wrote that Ericson’s “mental state continues to decline on a daily basis.”
That poses problems when trying to prepare for a trial, Stewart said. Adams said he would need at least six weeks’ notice that the trial is going to take place so he could subpoena three out-of-state witnesses, including the victim, who is now attending college in New York.
In her order, Stewart said the trial would be scheduled “as quickly as possible following the defendant’s return to local custody.”
Stewart can’t simply release Ericson back into the community to get treatment, since he’s been charged with attempted murder, the highest-level felony under murder.
If a defendant continues to lose his competency, the case could go on for an undetermined period of time, said Morrison, a retired U.S. attorney.
“Normally, they will eventually become competent, because those are the kinds of things medication and supervision can generally fix, but that’s normally. Sometimes they don’t, and then they’re just hospitalized in a mental institution forever,” he said.
“Until he gets a greater grasp or understanding, you’re just going to be kind of in a yo-yo situation until the charge is dismissed or until he’s found competent. Then he’s going to be in a state mental facility and when he leaves, he goes back to jail.
It’s sort of a catch-22 thing,” Morrison said.
“The sad part about it is, if he were to regain his competency, the insanity defense is not very successful.”
In his 30 years of practicing law, Morrison said he knows of one person who was found not guilty by reason of insanity. “The public likes to think it works a lot, but it doesn’t,” Morrison said.
“If you don’t have a psychosis or some very severe mental disease that is forcing you to be delusional, those kinds of things, if you don’t have that, you’re not going to make the insanity defense.”
If the insanity defense doesn’t hold up in court, a person can also be found guilty but mentally ill, he said.
But that wouldn’t change much as far as sentencing, because prison facilities are not able to fully treat the mentally ill, Morrison said.
“You get the same punishment; they just try to treat you if they can,” he said.
