Amid dispute over testimony, competency hearing for Boise mass stabbing suspect continues
The mental competency hearing for a 30-year-old man accused of stabbing nine people in Boise last June finished its third day on Friday — and a fourth day was scheduled for Jan. 15, according to online court records.
Timmy Earl Kinner Jr. is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 3-year-old Ruya Kadir, and prosecutors plan to pursue the death penalty. He’s also facing numerous other charges, including eight counts of aggravated battery.
A trial date has been set for Jan. 13, 2020, but Kinner’s attorneys said in court last September that they do no believe he is able to assist in his own defense. A psychiatrist tasked with evaluating Kinner then determined that he was not competent, a finding that prosecutors said they would challenge at the evidentiary hearing that began on Dec. 27. The hearing, which was expected to take two days, ran all day Thursday and resumed at 1 p.m. Friday.
Because the competency hearing is closed to the public, no information is available on what is discussed in court.
But a motion filed by Kinner’s attorneys earlier this week offers some clues: They objected to some of the witness testimony on Dec. 27, and they asked the judge to disregard it.
“At this hearing, the state presented testimony from a series of witnesses, which included jail guards, a legal adjunct/librarian, the jail psychiatrist, and other personnel employed by the Ada County sheriff,” the motion filed by attorney David Smethers says. “All of the state’s witnesses testified over the objection that they did not witness any psychotic or psychopathic acts/behaviors by the defendant.”
Smethers argued in the motion that the testimony provided “negative evidence,” which he said is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as “testimony that an alleged fact did not exist.”
“A witness may not testify to the non-existence of a fact where the fact may have existed without the witness being aware of said fact,” Smethers wrote.
He said prosecutors had not provided sufficient information on how much time the witnesses at the jail had actually spent with Kinner, noting that one deputy testified that he had hardly interacted with Kinner at all, and the jail psychiatrist had spoken to him just two or three minutes because “the defendant told the doctor to leave him alone.”
Kinner’s mental health has come into question in the past.
In 2012, a clinical psychologist was asked to assess Kinner’s fitness to stand trial for alleged aggravated assault in connection with a razor attack on an inmate at the county prison in Memphis, the Statesman reported in December.
“Even though he suffers from mental illness, I have concluded that he has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding and a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him,” clinical psychologist Wyatt L. Nichols wrote in a letter to Judge Loyce Lambert Ryan.
Nichols also determined that “severe mental disease or defect did not prevent the defendant from appreciating the nature and wrongfulness of such acts.”
Idaho defendants who are found unfit to stand trial are typically committed for 90 days to one of two state mental hospitals: the 90-bed State Hospital South in Blackfoot or the 55-bed State Hospital North in Orofino.
There’s been a 250 percent increase in restoration-to-competency cases in the past five years, according to Ross Edmunds, administrator at the Idaho Department of Health’s Division of Behavioral Health.
“We always have a wait list to get in,” Edmunds said. “It depends on the time of year, but it’s typically between six and 12 days.”
They are seeing more violent patients, too.
A judge who determines a defendant is “dangerous and mentally ill” can commit the person to the nine-bed Secure Mental Health Facility at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. All of those beds are currently filled, and there’s one person waiting for a bed, Department of Correction spokesman Jeff Ray said.
About 80-90 percent of those sent to the state hospitals for treatment are stabilized and restored to competency within the initial 90-day treatment period, Edmunds said.
If after 90 days of treatment at one of these facilities the defendant is still not deemed mentally fit to proceed, the court extends the commitment for up to another 180 days.
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