Published January 13, 2015
Attorneys for Charles A. McCoy Jr. (search) face one of the toughest courtroom challenges: They must paint a picture of a delusional man even as a jury looks over at a calm, collected and medicated defendant.
"It's going to be a horse race," said Andrew Haney, one of three attorneys for McCoy, a 29-year-old with a history of paranoid schizophrenia (search) who is charged in a deadly string of highway shootings around central Ohio between October 2003 and February 2004.
Jury selection in his trial began Friday and the trial is expected to last until mid-May. Panelists must decide if McCoy goes to prison, death row or to a mental hospital.
McCoy has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to aggravated murder and assault in 12 shootings — including the fatal shooting of 62-year-old Gail Knisley (search). He could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder.
Law professors say it will be hard to prove that firing his handgun toward houses, a school and moving vehicles meant that he intended to kill the people inside. That proof would be essential for the eight attempted murder charges and the possibility of a death sentence.
On the other side, McCoy's attorneys are using one of the most unpopular and least successful strategies in a jury trial. Many juries see the insanity defense as tantamount to confessing but trying to escape punishment.
It would take three separate unanimous votes for the jury to recommend a death sentence. They would have to convict McCoy of aggravated murder in the death of Knisley, who was being driven to a doctor's appointment; agree that the killing was part of a pattern of behavior trying to kill two or more people; and, after a sentencing phase, recommend execution.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ronald O'Brien said he has to prove only that McCoy intended the "natural and probable consequences" of firing at a moving vehicle with a person driving it. He compared it to firing into a crowded stadium knowing that someone could get hit.
Most of the defense's evidence will involve McCoy's 10-year history of paranoid schizophrenia, which causes delusions and inappropriate emotions.
The insanity plea is used in fewer than 1 percent of felony cases and rarely succeeds, said Thomas Hafemeister, director of legal studies at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/ohio-sniper-suspect-faces-challenge