AUGUSTA — It remains undecided whether the state will be able to medicate involuntarily Leroy Smith III in an effort to make him competent enough to face trial in the slaying and dismembering of his father.
Lawyers for the state — who filed the motion — and Smith’s defense attorney met behind closed doors with the judge Monday at the Capital Judicial Center.
Smith, 26, of Gardiner, has been held at Riverview Psychiatric Center and was not at the courthouse.
He has been charged with murder in the May 3, 2014, killing of Leroy Smith Jr., 56, in the Gardiner apartment they shared. Police say the son dismembered the body and distributed body parts in a rural area of Richmond. The younger Smith was found incompetent to stand trial at a hearing in January.
Smith previously has attempted to fire his attorneys, at one point sending a printed letter to the court.
“So once again so that everything is clear, I am demanding a new lawyering staff and a no contact order against my former one,” he wrote.
At a court hearing in January 2015, Smith addressed the judge directly, saying that a gun was held to his head in 2011 in an incident involving the heavy metal band Slayer, and that he exchanged messages with that band.
Justice Donald Marden on Monday said he would issue an order on the record and that the next hearing in the case was likely to be Dec. 1.
The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Deborah Cashman, said the judge was granting the state’s motion to allow attorneys to have limited access to Smith’s Riverview treatment records and only at the courthouse.
Cashman had sought a court order to have Smith involuntarily medicated. In that filing, she says Smith’s thought processes, which had been described as “floridly delusional,” had improved while he was taking Seroquel, a psychiatric medication, for sleep problems.
“While taking the Seroquel, the (Riverview) treatment team notes indicated no psychosis evident,” Cashman wrote.
However, Smith refused to continue taking the medication and rejected other medication.
Cashman’s motion says that an Aug. 11 letter from Miriam Davidson, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, reporting on Smith’s status, says, “Mr. Smith is not consenting to the recommended treatment by the hospital and is unlikely to be restored to competency without the administration of psychiatric medication over his objection.”
Immediately after Monday’s hearing, Smith’s defense attorney, Scott Hess, said he was not making comments on anything. He has objected to the state’s request to forcibly medicate Smith, saying in his written motion, “such would be a significant violation of his Constitutional rights.”
Two representatives from Riverview also were in the meeting with the judge Monday morning.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @betadams
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