Terry Ray Hawes, a psychotic high school dropout who
grew up in Mississippi and Montana, described himself as a walker. Others
called him a transient. He would often walk 20 miles or more along the
California coast between Mendocino and Santa Cruz, where he would crash
with friends. Hawes was walking his way down the coast, staying in campsites
along Highway One, when he met his alleged victim on Aug. 13, a woman
from Oklahoma, who was visiting friends at the Green Gulch Zen Center
and shopping at the Stinson Beach Market.
Hawes had been arrested for farming Marijuana in Mendocino
and counterfeiting currency on his computer printer, but had never been
accused of sexually assaulting someone before he met the vacationing
woman at the market. "This was probably a crime of opportunity",
said Deputy District Attorney Andy Perez, who gave a detailed account
of the state’s case. "He just met her and she told him where
she was hiking and camping out. And he saw the general direction where
she was going and then he followed her there."
The state alleges that Hawes, who has been in and
out of mental hospitals since 1987, walked to the woman’s campsite
and asked her if he could stay, Perez said. She said he could spend
the night and they went to sleep. She said that sometime before five
in the morning Hawes attacked her in her sleep; that she struggled as
Hawes forced his finger into her, and was kept captive by Hawes until
morning, when they left down the trail.
Painful blisters from poorly fitting shoes covered
Hawes feet. He made his way down the trail slowly, and his alleged victim
was able to pull ahead. When they reached Highway One, she ran ahead
and flagged down a truck. She jumped into the truck which sped off as
Hawes chased after them on blistered feet, Perez said. She was taken
to the restaurant, where deputies were called, and then to the hospital.
The woman from Oklahoma told deputies that her attacker
had tawny legs and a marijuana tattoo on his back, and had told her
his name was Terry and that he was from Mendocino. Mendocino police
were called and asked if they knew someone named Terry who was 42 and
had a marijuana tattoo on his back, Perez said. After Mendocino police
were sent a surveillance photo taken in a Tamalpais Valley 7-11, they
found someone who knew Hawes, who told them that he often goes to Santa
Cruz and stays with particular friends. Santa Cruz police caught Hawes
after staking out the friends.
Found mentally incompetent to stand
trial
But Hawes, who stood accused of raping the woman with
a foreign object (penetration by anything other than a penis, including
a finger or tongue), and falsely imprisoning her at the Steep Ravine
campsite, was judged too insane to stand trial last Thursday. His appointed
Public Defender, Eva Bennett, convinced the judge that Hawes was too
insane to understand court proceedings and assist Bennett in his own
defense.
This is very different from when a jury finds a defendant
not guilty by reason of insanity. It is the defendant’s ability
to understand court proceedings now that is in question, not whether
Hawes was insane at the time of the attack.
Bennett presented evidence that Hawes had been in
and out of three mental hospitals, and was a man who had heard voices
commanding him to kill President Reagan and his own family.
Psychiatric team will try to get Hawes ready for
trial
This does not mean that Hawes will never be tried
for his alleged crimes. It is very likely that Hawes will regain competency
to stand trial within three or four months. That is because the state
of California has three state hospitals with departments dedicated to
taking defendants judged too insane to stand before a jury, and restoring
them to competency.
"Our main mission is to get them competent and
back to court," said Cindy Barrett of the Metropolitan State Hospital
in Norwalk, CA. The other two state hospitals with 1370, or competency
divisions, are Napa State Hospital and Atascadero State Hospital. It
is unknown where Hawes will be taken.
Hawes will be assigned a treatment team consisting
of a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, rehab therapist, registered
nurse, psychiatric technician and dietician. Their collective expertise
will be focused on getting Hawes mentally competent enough to go back
and face the jury. This usually takes between three and four months,
according to Barrett and Miriam Makamereh, who acts as a liaison between
Metropolitan State Hospital and the court system.
Many 1370 patients are there because they went off
their medication and committed a crime. Their treatment often involves
putting patients back on their medication–sometimes against their
will. Hawes had previously been prescribed Stelazine, Cogentin and Lorazepan.
If Hawes refuses to go back on his medication, there
will be a hearing named after a 2003 Supreme Court case, Sell v.
United States, which held that defendants can be forced to take
anti-psychotic medication in order to regain competency if a three-part
test is met. The court must consider the seriousness of the crime, and
whether incarceration in a mental hospital isn’t sufficient punishment.
The court must then consider whether, "alternative, less intrusive
treatments are unlikely to achieve substantially the same results"
and then determine whether the administration of the drugs is, "medically
appropriate."
Hawes’ competency first became an issue three
to four weeks into the proceedings. He stopped communicating with his
court-appointed Public Defender.
"I have no explanation for the lack of cooperation,"
Bennett explained to The Light. "I had some idea
that there were mental health issues and investigated." Bennett
said that she discovered that Hawes had been in and out of mental hospitals
in Montana and Mississippi, where he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
The psychiatrists who treated Hawes said that he is
a paranoid delusional, who often hears voices and experiences hallucinations,
and is only able to regain sanity with the help of anti-psychotic drugs.
Hawes received treatment from May 1987 to June 1988; and then in 1991
Hawes heard a voice that demanded the death of President Reagan and
in 1999, a voice that ordered him to kill his wife and child.
"I had him examined by doctors, but he refused
to talk to them, so I went forward and presented the judge the information
I had, as well as letters that Hawes wrote me."
Attorneys representing the mentally ill have to decide
whether to go against their clients’ wishes, and ask the judge
to find that the defendant is mentally incompetent. "This is
a difficult position," Bennett said. "It is my obligation.
If I have any doubt as to his competency I have to go forward with a
competency hearing."
Prosecutor says that Hawes is competent now
Perez thinks that Hawes is competent now and points
to the motions that Hawes has filed with the court. "This guy filed
papers on his own behalf. He knew how the court system worked. Filing
documents on his own behalf regarding his right to a speedy trial indicates
that he understands how the criminal justice system works."
Just because Hawes wouldn’t speak to his lawyers
or doctors does not mean he is incompetent, Perez said. "His failure
to cooperate did not make him incompetent. He just doesn’t want
to cooperate."
Defendants sometimes fake insanity in order to get
out of trial. Perez said that, "people who fake it are our greatest
concern." But the state mental hospitals are expert at catching
malingerers.
"It is easy for an individual in a jail to fake
it," Barrett said. But here he has to do it seven days a week,
24 hours a day. One minute they don’t know time of day and the
next they are betting on upcoming sports games with their peers."
State hospitals even have experts in malingerers that
test newly admitted patients. "We are well trained at identifying
malingerers, Makemereh said. "They are picked up really fast. They
say that they are seeing things that are not there, but not when the
staff observes them in the general population. It is what they are saying
versus what we observe."
Nobody is accusing Hawes of faking incompetency. At
the hearing last Thursday, he said that he wanted to represent himself
and insisted that he was competent to stand trial. Hawes said that he
waa being sent to a state hospital as punishment for refusing to waive
his speedy trial rights earlier in the proceedings.
On December 29, there will be another hearing that
will decide to which state mental hospital Hawes will be sent. In the
unlikely event that Hawes fails to regain competency within three years,
there will be a hearing to appoint a conservator. His 1370 status has
to end, but he may stay in the hospital if that is in his best interest.
"The charges will stay there," Barrett said.
"And if in 20 years the patient gains competency, they can be charged."