Attorney Uses the "mentally ill" Card for Serial Killer

[Law Dawg]

  
Posted on Tue, Apr. 06, 2004

Allen to face death penalty
Even as prosecutors announced Monday they will seek the death penalty
against convicted killer Quincy Allen, his mental health quickly emerged
as an issue in his upcoming Richland County trial.
A North Carolina court in February sentenced Allen, 24, to life in
prison in a plea bargain after he dropped an insanity defense to capital
murder charges in Surry County, N.C. He is also charged in the deaths of
two Richland County residents during a multi-state crime spree in 2002.
His local attorney, Fielding Pringle, said Allen had six admissions for
psychiatric treatment before the 2002 crime spree.
?My client is severely mentally ill,? said Pringle, a public defender,
during a brief hearing Monday in the Richland County Courthouse.
She did not elaborate in court and later declined to be interviewed.
Allen waived his right to be present at the hearing. Some family members
of the victims, however, did attend.
Fifth Circuit Solicitor Barney Giese, who has called Allen ?a
cold-blooded killer? said Monday he would have sought to execute Allen
despite his medical condition and even if Allen had gotten a death
sentence in North Carolina.
?We needed to let the community make the decision? whether Allen lives
or dies, the prosecutor said.
Giese?s office has tried and failed to get three death verdicts in the
nine years since Jason Byram was ordered to die for his role in the May
1993 stabbing of a school teacher.
In 1997, a Richland County jury declined to recommend death for Lavar
Kinte Bryant, 20, in the screwdriver stabbing death of Mike Suber, a
state agency photographer.
In October 1998, another Richland County jury would not send Max Knoten
to be executed in the raping and slaying of Kimberly Brown, 30, and the
drowning of her cousin, Layah Brazil, 3.
In May 1998, a jury deadlocked over executing Felix Cheeseboro in the
execution-style killings of popular Columbia barber Frank Kelly and
customer Leon Poole.
Giese said he wants to try Allen in July. But he expects the defense to
seek a delay. Pringle said in court she doubts she can be ready by then.
If Giese gets his way, that timetable would be the fastest in his 23
years as a prosecutor that a death-penalty case would be tried following
the decision to seek the ultimate penalty.
Allen is charged with eight offenses in Richland County, all but one a
felony, assistant prosecutor David Pascoe said.
The death penalty is in connection with the July 10, 2002, shotgun
slaying and burning of Dale Evonne Hall, 45. Her body was found in woods
off Interstate 77.
Police said Allen told them he killed Hall to decide if he ?had the
stomach? to become a serial killer.
About a month later, Jedediah Harr, 22, was shot while, according to
police, Allen was trying to kill Brian Marquis. The two had argued after
a confrontation between Allen and the girlfriend of Marquis, who worked
with Allen at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant on Two Notch Road.
Allen?s other local charges include three arsons and two other assaults
with firearms.
Allen was arrested in August 2002 while sleeping in a sport utility
vehicle the police said was stolen from homicide victim Robert Roush, an
Ohio school teacher who walked into a Dobson, N.C., gas station during a
robbery.
Store clerk Richard Hawks, 53, also died in that holdup.
The crime was captured on the store?s video surveillance system and
showed Allen, North Carolina prosecutors said.
Allen was tracked through Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York before he
was arrested near Colorado City, Texas.