Monday, March 13, 2017

Dr. Anthony Garcia's death penalty hearing likely delayed after Judge orders mental competency exam for 'Creighton Killer'

Convicted Creighton Killer, Dr. Anthony Garcia, sat in court catatonic, refusing to answer the Judge in court
Convicted murderer Dr. Anthony Garcia sat mute during a mandatory preliminary death penalty sentencing hearing this morning and remained non-responsive to any questions from the Judge or his legal team.

Judge Gary Randall ordered a mental evaluation for Dr.
Anthony Garcia before proceeding with the death penalty
phase of the Garcia murder trial
When Judge Gary Randall repeatedly asked Dr. Garcia questions during the hearing, Dr. Garcia simply remained silent throughout the entire hearing, rocking back and forth in his seat with his eyes gazing downward avoiding any eye contact with anyone in the courtroom.

“Dr. Garcia if you do not respond to me, you leave me with no choice but to follow the third thing we discussed at the hearing last week [sic] was to have you sent to the Lincoln Regional Center to determine whether or not you’re competent,” Judge Randall said in court.

After getting no response from the defendant, the Judge then promptly ordered Dr. Garcia for another mental evaluation at the Lincoln Regional Center to determine if he is competent to take part in the death penalty phase of his murder trial.

Garcia had already refused to attend a sentencing hearing in person last week in Douglas County.

His legal team asserts that Garcia's catatonic behavior today is similar to what they experienced with the convicted murderer for months when they tried to meet with him in confidence to discuss issues before the court. Apparently, Dr. Garcia had not even spoken at all to his attorneys during his 3 1/2-week quadruple murder trial.


“No man awaiting trial should be held in solitary confinement for three and half years," said Dr. Garcia's attorney Robert Motta. "That person will not be able to assist which was evident in our trial in any capacity. He slept through half of his trial. A normal person does not sleep through their own death penalty case.”



Garcia's legal team had asked Judge Randall last week to have Garcia evaluated for mental competency, but the Judge wanted to see the defendant for himself in person today to determine if the situation warranted another mental evaluation for the defendant, so he ordered prison officials to bring Dr. Garcia to Monday's hearing and extract him from his jail cell if necessary.

Is it all an act, or is it real? Frankly, we just can't tell
Dr. Garcia is scheduled to be sentenced during the death penalty phase of the trial at the end of the month, but those plans may all change pending the outcome of his mental evaluation.

In the previous sentencing hearing last week, the defense team told the court that they were concerned that Dr. Garcia could not participate in the sentencing phase of his trial because they were concerned that Dr. Garcia's imprisonment in solitary confinement for more than three years might have affected his sanity.

In rebuttal, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine presented evidence to the court in the form of "kites" written by Dr. Garcia to prison officials, which are notes from an inmate incarcerated asking for everyday household items and other favors to be done, such as batteries, books, nail clippers, changes in medication, or even getting a haircut, to refute claims from the defense that Dr. Garcia can indeed communicate to others if he wants something.

“We really believe this is a ploy. You know he hasn’t had any problem communicating with anyone over at the correctional center," said Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine. "We have written letters he sent requesting batteries or a haircut, of cutting back on his medication, so when he comes in here and doesn’t even respond it’s catatonic I think that's just what that is,”


While the prosecutor argued that Dr. Garcia's bizarre antics in court was a ploy to play the system to delay the inevitable in answering for his crimes during the death penalty phase of the trial, Garcia's attorney Robert Motta, Jr. insisted that this was no ploy, and there was something clearly wrong with his client.

Dr. Anthony Garcia's attorney Robert Motta, Jr.
According to Motta, Dr. Garcia has refused to talk with his attorneys and family members for months, even refusing to communicate with his defense team during his own 3 1/2-week trial, and he has refused to attend any of his subsequent hearings until he was forced to be brought into court by Judge Randall on Monday.

A few times jailers had placed Garcia with two other inmates during his recreation time; howerver, Garcia did not communicate a word to his fellow inmates, so jailers stopped sending out other inmates with him, according Kleine.

Due to the seriousness of the sentencing phase of the capital murder trial, Judge Randall had no choice but to order Dr. Garcia to be immediately evaluated at Lincoln Regional Center for mental competency.

There is currently no timetable for how long the mental evaluation will take, nor whether it will be completed in a timely manner before March 30, when Dr. Garcia is scheduled to appear before a three-judge panel to determine if he deserves to receive the death penalty for his crimes.


Dr. Garcia was convicted of the 2008 double murders of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and the Hunters' family housekeeper, 54-year-old Shirley Sherman, and the subsequent 2013 double murders of Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife Mary in their homes.

Done in by a stripper: the prosecutors most damaging evidence was an offhand
remark that Garcia made to a Terre Haute stripper, bragging what a 'bad boy' he
was to try to impress her to go out with him on a date
Monday was actually the 9-year anniversary of the Dundee double murders of Thomas Hunter and Shirley Sherman, which took place on March 13, 2008.

All the victims had ties to Creighton University's pathology residency program, where Dr. Garcia was fired from as a first-year resident back in 2001. 11-year-old Thomas Hunter was the son of the Creighton pathology residency director, Dr. William Hunter, and Dr. Brumback was the chairman of the pathology department at Creighton at the time of firing and the first murders.

Dr. Garcia was convicted largely on circumstantial evidence during a long 3 1/2-week trial last October as there was virtually no witnesses or physical evidence to directly tie Garcia to the crime scenes in question.


His ties to Creighton University, cell phone records, restaurant receipts, and an off-hand remark to a stripper at a Terra Haute, Indiana strip club were all that prosecutors presented as evidence to bring about a conviction.
  


Prosecutor said Garcia committed the murders out of a motive of revenge after being unceremoniously fired from the Creighton residency program back in 2001. Dr. Garcia had been fired from a string of other medical residency training programs before and since his time at Creighton.



The Creighton murders that shook Omaha and the high profile murder trial will be featured on Friday's episode of Dateline NBC on March 17th at 8 p.m. in a 2-hour special, entitled, "Haunting."

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