by Burl Barer
“I made that finding of incompetence with extreme reluctance,” Stone later commented. “I refused to make that finding at the first hearing. I am not a doctor, I am a judge, and the court should not attempt to usurp the prerogatives of the doctors.”
Murdach was pleased. His client would be removed from solitary confinement, relocated to Western State Hospital, and receive at least ninety days of professional observation and evaluation. Dr. Lloyd, who previously characterized Paul St. Pierre as incompetent to stand trial because of a mental state bordering on psychotic, would undoubtedly be Western State Hospital’s prime evaluator. Although Lloyd didn’t originally endorse sending St. Pierre to Western State Hospital, he was familiar with the patient’s history, current diagnosis, and most appropriate medicinal needs.
Pursuant to a court order issued March 25, 1985, Paul St. Pierre was admitted to Western State Hospital for ninety days of observation, evaluation, and treatment. The Damon Wells murder trial would begin the following week. Paul St. Pierre’s hospitalization for psychiatric evaluation meant the brothers would be tried separately.
Lyhle Quasim, director of the Mental Health Department of Social and Health Services, confirmed St. Pierre’s transfer. “He will be treated like any other patient,” said Quasim. “The guy was sent to us under provisions of the revised code of Washington, and we are treating him.”
On March 25, shortly after 2:00 P.M., Dr. Joseph Lloyd admitted Paul St. Pierre to Western State Hospital’s high-security Mentally Ill Offenders Unit. On March 26, Dr. Lloyd’s supervisor pulled him from any contact with Paul St. Pierre and replaced Lloyd with retired psychiatrist Dr. Donald Allison. On Thursday, March 28, Dr. Allison and clinical psychologist Dr. William C. Proctor interviewed Paul St. Pierre for approximately one hour and forty minutes. On Friday, March 29, Paul St. Pierre was back in solitary confinement at the Pierce County Jail.
David Murdach didn’t know about his client’s round-trip visit to Western State Hospital until he read about it in the Saturday Tacoma News Tribune. Judge Stone was equally caught off guard. “I was a little surprised when I got a call from the newspaper reporter asking me questions,” recalled Stone, “and this was before I had even read the newspaper. For all I knew, Paul St. Pierre was still at the hospital. I learned from the newspaper reporter that St. Pierre was at the jail.”
Stone, Hultman, Murdach, and Ladenburg all received copies of Proctor’s and Allison’s evaluation on Monday, April 1. The doctors found him competent to stand trial, a medical determination pleasing to Carl Hultman. If Stone upheld the report, the Pierre brothers would be tried together after all. The prosecution, however, had more on its mind than the mental state of Paul St. Pierre. Hultman’s main interest was the long-awaited, much anticipated, and often dreaded arrival of his star witness, Andrew Webb.
“What Mr. Webb will testify to,” Hultman previously explained, “is that he was kneeling beside Damon Wells when Paul handed him the knife, and when he was hesitant to do anything, Paul displayed a forty-five that he regularly carries on his belt.” Once reunited, Hultman and Webb would prepare for his all-important courtroom appearance. A few short hours thereafter, everyone would know, in detail, what exact testimony to expect from Andrew Webb.
On Tuesday, April 2, Andrew Webb arrived from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Marty Webb recalled the day, the date, and the essence of her brother-in-law’s interaction with the deputy prosecutor. “If my memory serves me well, that’s when Andrew told Carl Hultman to shove it up his ass.”
Eleven
“I interviewed Mr. Webb on Tuesday, April 2, after he was flown back by the Department of Corrections,” confirmed an exasperated Carl Hultman. “He indicated in my interview with him that he unequivocally is determined to not testify in this case about any of these matters. He had a variety of explanations which range from what he professes to be religious beliefs, to some reference to the fact that he has been threatened three times since he became incarcerated.”
“Paul St. Pierre would like to know whether or not Mr. Webb will be a witness in this trial,” Murdach told Hultman, “and I think we have a right to know. We heard that he will not testify, or will not give a statement or something, but I need to know. I think it is only appropriate that the prosecutor tell us.”
“I think we will undoubtedly call him to the witness stand outside the presence of the jury in order to establish his unavailability,” Hultman answered, “but that is a separate question right now. I don’t have any anticipation that he will testify. He sounds unwilling, and he says that he’s decided to not testify against those two defendants.”
This answer wasn’t good enough for Murdach. It also wasn’t good enough for Judge Stone. “Isn’t Mr. Murdach entitled to know, yes or no, whether you expect to have him come before the judge or jury, or both? You are not guaranteeing what he is going to say, or what happens.”
“I do not intend to give any suggestion to the jury that he is available to testify,” answered Hultman, “nor suggest any testimony he intends to give, because he has said right now that he will not testify.”
“He will be brought before the judge at some point,” Stone assured Murdach, “and he will be available in custody in Tacoma, I gather, for any consultation.”
The next item on Stone’s agenda of April 3 was the controversial competency evaluation from Western State Hospital.
“Paul St. Pierre’s ninety-day evaluation at Western State Hospital lasted less than two hours,” complained Murdach. “He was immediately pronounced competent to stand trial, and the Tacoma News Tribune said that hospital sent him back to the county jail because he was too dangerous.”
“Mr. Murdach, the court, and the state received a lengthy report from Western State Hospital concerning the condition of Paul St. Pierre,” said Carl Hultman. “The report was completed by [the] doctors Proctor and Allison. Their conclusion in that report is that Paul St. Pierre is competent, and he had already been returned to the Pierce County Jail by the time that report was received.”
Dr. William Proctor, PhD, chief psychologist, and Dr. Donald Allison, staff psychiatrist, interviewed St. Pierre on March 28. According to the report, St. Pierre bragged about dismissing his first lawyer, Mr. Connelly. “I fired him because he was lyin’ to me about things,” said St. Pierre, “tellin’ me I didn’t have a right to this or that.” He complained that Connelly insisted that he plea-bargain with the prosecutor, and that his new attorney had approached him with the same deal. St. Pierre said that there was no way that he would accept a plea-bargaining deal, and complained that his attorney didn’t say what he wanted him to say in court. “I might as well go ahead and speak for myself,” he said.
St. Pierre explained that the prosecutors had bungled the case, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t be convicted. Asked to define a prosecutor’s role, he answered, “Mainly, they try to get you to cop a plea. Otherwise, they try to keep railroadin’ ya.” He complained of being pressured to plead guilty, and insisted that the judge was working with the prosecutors.
“A real judge would have dismissed the case as far as what’s gone down,” St. Pierre told the doctors, “because I can’t get a fair trial in Washington or the Northwest for that matter because of being on the TV. If I were on the jury myself, I would probably give myself the death penalty.”
“Mr. St. Pierre clearly would prefer to be in the general population in the jail, rather than to be in an isolation cell,” stated the report. “The defendant was alert and oriented throughout the examination. He was generally cooperative in the sense that he answered questions put to him except when they came close to discussions about the alleged events. He was cynically suspicious of the criminal justice system and all those connected with it. The examiners gained the impression that some of the questions were not answered fully because of the context in which the examination was taking place. His speech was normal in terms of quantity and quality, and rate of production. He had a good flow of
goal-directed speech and showed good logical progression of thought. As is frequently seen among incarcerated persons, there were a considerable number of expletives used to give emphasis to his cynical thoughts about the criminal justice system. About the criminal justice system, there was an underlying tone of defiance and disdain. His mood was appropriate to the topic under discussion, varying from anger at the thought of being confined in solitary, to cheerfulness at the thought of the informer’s peril in Walla Walla. No delusions, hallucinations, or other symptoms of major mental illness were noticed during the examination. He was interrogated about earlier vague reports he had made of seeing things appear and disappear. His response was that while he was in solitary he had the sense that things were moving or changing around him, but he definitely discounted the idea that he might have seen anything moving, appearing, or disappearing. He explicitly denied that he had experienced hallucinations.
“Throughout the interview,” reported Dr. Proctor, “he evidenced the desire to defy the prosecutors and jailers, rather than to lose prestige by making a deal. He expressed distrust for all people, but particularly those related to the criminal justice system. He demonstrated a great deal of cynical suspiciousness of the idea that the criminal justice system existed to benefit him in any way.”
“At the time of our recent evaluation, there was no question in our minds that the defendant was aware of the nature of the charges against him and the possible penalty if convicted,” wrote Proctor and Allison. “The question then hinges on whether or not the defendant is able to assist counsel in his own defense. Intellectually, there appears to be no problem with Mr. St. Pierre’s doing so. He is aware of his constitutional rights and errors that the prosecution has allegedly made which rebound to his advantage. He seems, in fact, to have a reasonable layman’s working knowledge of the legal justice system.
“It is the examiners’ opinion, that the defendant is able to assist counsel in his own behalf. Consequently, it is our opinion that the defendant is competent to stand trial at this time. As the defendant is competent to stand trial, and the evaluation is complete, we respectfully request that he be returned to the court for further proceedings.”
“It was my request that this morning the court conduct a competency hearing with respect to Paul St. Pierre,” Carl Hultman stated, “and if the court determines that Paul St. Pierre is now competent to stand trial, it would be the state’s motion that he be rejoined as a defendant so both defendants could be tried at a joint trial as originally intended.”
David Murdach strongly objected. Holding a competency hearing on such short notice allowed him no time for adequate preparation. “Christopher St. Pierre’s case is set for trial today,” Murdach said, “and we should proceed with the trial. Paul St. Pierre’s case should be set in due course and allow a fair hearing to take place in view of the amount of testimony concerning the issue of competency. I think we are rushing to judgment over the issue of competency in an effort to hitch Paul St. Pierre’s case along with Chris St. Pierre’s case. I think the two are entirely different matters. Christopher St. Pierre’s case should go along as scheduled, and Paul St. Pierre’s case should be a fair trial, and set after a fair competency hearing where I have a chance to sit down with my witness in an educated setting and go over all the testing that has been done. In fact, I feel I should have the chance to have Dr. Muscatel, or some other clinical psychologist, do some testing of Mr. St. Pierre to see what happened in one day to change him from incompetent to competent.”
“I will state flatly,” Judge Stone replied, “it is the intention of the court to proceed with the competency hearing. As I say, it’s the order of the court that we will proceed to the competency hearing at this time.” The judge turned to Carl Hultman. “You may call your first witness.”
The state’s first witness was Dr. William Proctor. “I am a licensed psychologist in the state of Washington,” said Dr. Proctor, “and I have testified in superior court on competency and diminished capacity issues on many, many cases, and I have reported on these matters over the years. I am familiar with the tests for competency, and to my understanding, the defendant has to understand the nature of the charges against him, and the possible penalty involved upon conviction, and has to be able to assist in his own defense.”
After spending one hour and forty minutes with Paul St. Pierre on March 28, Dr. Proctor reached the following conclusion to which he testified. “There is no question that the defendant at the time of the interview understood the nature of the charges and the serious possible penalty of death if he were convicted. There is no question about that. He was knowledgeable about the legal process. He had at least average intelligence. I didn’t see any reason to feel he was incompetent.”
Dr. Proctor acknowledged Paul St. Pierre’s suspiciousness of the legal justice system, but interpreted it as an aid rather than a detriment. “Perhaps it sharpens his sense of the need to defend himself,” said Proctor.
Murdach demanded Dr. Proctor explain how Allison and he determined St. Pierre’s competency in less than two hours, and with no testing.
“I didn’t think testing was necessary because one doesn’t assume a person is psychotic without any evidence to that effect,” explained Dr. Proctor. “You assume people are aware of reality around them unless something has been presented to make you question that. And, frankly, nothing in my interview with Mr. St. Pierre led me to wonder about that. If I don’t see signs of incompetency, then I think the person is competent.”
“Do you recall,” asked Murdach rhetorically, “that there was a court order finding him incompetent, and he was sent to Western State for an evaluation? He has been found incompetent, and was sent to you with a finding of incompetent?”
Obviously aggravated, David Murdach verbally pushed Proctor into a testimonial corner. “Did you start out presuming he was incompetent? Or did you start out presuming competency?”
Proctor admitted the preconceived idea that St. Pierre was competent before he ever met him, that Judge Stone most likely was in error, and the other psychologists and psychiatrists consulted were equally mistaken.
“What makes you think your view is more clear than someone else’s?” Murdach, as irritated as he was curious, honestly wanted an answer. Proctor provided one without hesitation. “Very rarely have I testified in court on this issue when the court did not agree with me. Probably ninety-five or ninety-eight percent of the time, the court agrees with me.”
Murdach, taken aback, requested clarification. “Because you have been sustained by the court makes you feel that you have a more clear understanding than other people? It’s not because of your training?”
“Training? Well,” responded Proctor, “it’s part of my experience.”
Murdach lost it. “It’s because you have been rubber-stamped by the court!”
Hultman objected, and Judge Stone said, “I think the court would object to that, too. I will sustain the objection.”
“Dr. Proctor was a professional individual who handled a lot of difficult questions on cross-examination quite well,” Hultman later commented. “He is an intelligent man who has been on the witness stand before, and he knows how to deal with these issues.”
David Murdach’s professionalism prevented him from throwing a fit or punching a psychiatrist when he discovered, in the course of further testimony, that the examination of Paul St. Pierre was inconsistent with Western State Hospital’s standard procedures, and the actual hospital record of St. Pierre’s whirlwind tour was not provided to the court.
Dr. Allison then took the stand on behalf of the prosecution and described his examination of Paul St. Pierre. “I only did a portion of the interview on this occasion because Dr. Proctor was just now meeting Mr. St. Pierre. I had met him twice before, but we spent a pleasant hour and twenty minutes, and Mr. St. Pierre was quite pleasant.” Allison also considered St. Pierre “a good actor.”
“It’s our job to tell the good actors from the
bad actors. He puts on a good show,” testified Dr. Allison. “He likes to play games, he believes in hysterics, or his strong personality, and he likes to put on a show to get attention. That’s what the hallucinations are. In other words, he wants to be important. He likes to talk about some witch character that whispers to him once in a while to kill himself, but he never quite gets around to it, but that’s about it. I’m sure he is competent to stand trial.”
Asked further about his professional experience and career, Allison mentioned resigning his position at Western State Hospital the previous November. Semiretired, Allison continued working part-time for Western State in sex offender admittance. The most recent Thursday, however, he was summoned from fifty miles away to evaluate Paul St. Pierre.
“Apparently,” said Dr. Allison, “it was somebody’s opinion that I see him instead of another doctor.” Under oath, Allison confirmed that the “other doctor” was Joseph Lloyd. “I heard Lloyd was being moved because he was not doing an adequate job, I guess,” Allison testified. “I don’t know. I refuse to speculate. I never talked to Dr. Lloyd about Paul St. Pierre.”
“Are you aware that Dr. Lloyd wrote a report in this case?” asked Murdach during cross-examination. “Did you read that report?”
“No, why should I? I haven’t read Dr. Muscatel’s or Dr. Tappin’s reports, either. I don’t need to read reports; I need to see patients. Patients are what we are treating, not paper.”
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea,” prompted Murdach, “to read what has been done by other doctors in the St. Pierre case before you come to your conclusion?”
“It would be like reading the newspaper before I went to jail to see a client, like reading the newspaper before I came to court to see what I’m doing. I never read the newspaper,” stated Allison firmly. “I never read such junk. I don’t like my brain occupied by a bunch of garbage.”