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« Arms of the Khyber Pass | Main | Scottish knife homicides up 38% »

VA Tech shooter's psych ruling

Posted by David Hardy · 23 April 2007 11:22 AM

A commenter brought this up in the past posting, and it surely deserves prominence. Cho's evaluation for committment is online: here's the critical page (You can go back and forward from that page to see the others).

The Special Justice (a bit of research indicates those are, in VA, attorneys appointed by the court to do judge-type work on a part-time basis, while often keeping their legal practice going on the side) finds that he presents an imminent danger to himself. But he doesn't check the box for committment, and instead enters "Court ordered O-P [outpatient] -- to follow all recommended treatments."

I've got to say that the forms illustrate how lightly these are taken. Most of the findings are by checking boxes, just like a small claims court order. Here, it was entered by a special justice whose only job requirement is that he be licensed to practice law.

6 Comments | Leave a comment

doug in colorado | April 23, 2007 11:55 AM | Reply

That casual little moment with a part time judge was one key mistake of a cascade of failures that put certifiable nutcase in possession of firearms, in a "gun-free" zone (result of another failure in the VA legislature), with a grudge against all those around him who (to him) seemed to have it all, while he had nothing.

Nimrod45 | April 23, 2007 2:50 PM | Reply


Sure does look like an "Involuntary Committment" to me - even though he wasn't locked up in the booby hatch...

Jim W | April 23, 2007 3:01 PM | Reply

And based upon the box-checking of a legal colleague who is so hard up for cash he judges on the side, I could lose my right to keep and bear arms for life?

Letalis | April 23, 2007 5:48 PM | Reply

Have any of you ever been to a county courthouse lately? Say, around 8:30 or 9:00 on a Monday morning? I doubt you have. The places are packed with the hearings for all the turds who got arrested over the weekend.

Many counties can't afford (because you guys don't want to be taxed) to pay enough full-time judges to handle the case load. The urban counties are the worst, of course.

There is no free lunch, guys.

Mark | April 23, 2007 6:37 PM | Reply

It does appear that VA courts and the law takes this very lightly. On the other hand is the certification made by the examining physician. He states at the top of page 4:

1)The person that examined IS mentally ill.
2)The he DOES NOT present a imminent threat to himself or others.
3)That he IS NOT substantially unable to care for himself.
4)and that he DOES NOT require involuntary hospitalization.

I don't know what else the judge could have done with that statement. The "form" kind of misrepresents the results of the examination by the physician. It appears that we have a "crazy as a fox" type of person. He does not speak in public, writes some really twisted stuff, stalks people but has just enough of it together to fake it through a psych eval.

I know everyone (including me) is looking for that one spot that you can go "gotcha" but taken as separate occurrences, it simply is not there. If you take it as whole, this guy was one flaming nut-bag. I guess the only one shot "gotcha" is that the signs were all over the place and nobody put two and two together and damn, it so frustrating.

Mark

mediageek | April 24, 2007 3:50 PM | Reply

So how does this play in regards to question 11F on the Federal Form 4473- "Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective..."

Had the doctor said as much, what's the process for getting that information into NICS?

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