Court rules mentally ill man was well enough to understand charges against him; upholds conviction for murdering mother

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Demond Chatman was mentally competent during his trial the murder of his mother in a Roxbury apartment in 2000, which means, barring further appeals, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The state's highest court acknowledged that Chatman had been mentally ill since childhood, but said evidence showed Chatman had periods of lucidity, and that those included the time during which he was charged and tried on a charge of shooting his mother.

The court rejected testimony from a psychiatrist who examined Chatman during his appeal of his 2002 conviction that Chatman in fact could not have understood what was going on during his trial. The court said this was in part because other clinicians who interviewed Chatman after his conviction found he was able to discuss the trial rationally and contributed to his own defense strategy, in part because the doctor never interviewed Chatman's lawyers:

It was not unreasonable for the motion judge to conclude that, while [the psychiatrist] is no doubt qualified to opine regarding the defendant's mental illness and about his competence at the time of his interviews, it was problematic that he reached the conclusion that the defendant was unable meaningfully to consult with his attorney or rationally to understand the proceedings at trial without speaking to the only people who could offer insight into that time period, aside from the defendant.