A Cobb County, Georgia tri­al court has declared a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill cap­i­tal defen­dant incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al and com­mit­ted him to a state men­tal hos­pi­tal, effec­tive­ly end­ing pros­e­cu­tors’ sev­en-year efforts to obtain the death penal­ty in his case. Jesse James Warren (pic­tured) was fac­ing tri­al and a pos­si­ble death sen­tence for killing four men and wound­ing anoth­er in 2010 at a Penske Truck Rental store where he had pre­vi­ous­ly worked. The shoot­ing spree was alleged­ly moti­vat­ed by Warren’s delu­sion­al belief that the mil­i­tary had paid him $500 mil­lion for invent­ing WiFi and that Penske had stolen some of that mon­ey from him. The rul­ing by Judge Mary Staley Clark fol­lowed tes­ti­mo­ny from two state psy­chi­a­trists on August 1. Both agreed that Warren suf­fers from a debil­i­tat­ing delu­sion­al dis­or­der and refus­es to take med­ica­tion, mak­ing him a dan­ger to him­self and any­one who chal­lenges his delu­sions out­side of a hos­pi­tal set­ting. Warren, a mechan­ic by train­ing, was first diag­nosed as delu­sion­al in 2009 when Penske — his for­mer-employ­er — sent him to a psy­chi­a­trist. Among his oth­er delu­sions, Warren report­ed­ly claimed that he is an emper­or, that he was the son of God, and that church­es and reli­gions were try­ing to kill him. Prosecutors sought the death penal­ty against Warren despite his doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness, but lost a legal chal­lenge in the Georgia Supreme Court in 2015 to have Warren forcibly med­icat­ed with anti-psy­chot­ic drugs to try to make him fit to stand tri­al. Warren’s delu­sions ren­der him unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the charges against him and assist coun­sel in his defense. Prosecutors now agree that he is unlike­ly to become com­pe­tent to stand tri­al, even with med­ica­tion. Georgia has exe­cut­ed fif­teen pris­on­ers in the past three years, many under con­tro­ver­sial cir­cum­stances. A DPIC analy­sis of those exe­cu­tions showed that eight of the fif­teen strug­gled with a com­bi­na­tion of men­tal ill­ness, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and/​or oth­er seri­ous men­tal or emo­tion­al dis­tur­bances. In 2015, Georgia exe­cut­ed Andrew Brannan, a dec­o­rat­ed Vietnam vet­er­an with a diag­no­sis of Post-trau­mat­ic Stress Disorder and a 100% men­tal dis­abil­i­ty rec­og­nized by the Veterans Administration. In 2016, it exe­cut­ed Kenneth Fults, despite evi­dence that he was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and func­tioned at the lev­el of the low­est 1% of the pop­u­la­tion. At the same time, Georgia juries have been mov­ing away from the death penal­ty, hav­ing not imposed any new death sen­tences since 2014.

(R. Cook, ​“Jesse James Warren found incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al in 2010 Penske shoot­ings,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 1, 2017; R. Cavitt, ​“Man accused in dead­ly Penske shoot­ing spree found incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al,” WSB-TV2 Atlanta, August 1, 2017; R. Cook, ​“Accused Penske killer can­not be forced to take anti-psy­chot­ic meds,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 19, 2015.) See Mental Illness.

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