THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 24, 1995 TAG: 9508240511
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: DEDHAM, MASS. LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
A judge found John C. Salvi III competent Wednesday to stand trial on murder charges in a shooting rampage that left two people dead at abortion clinics.
Salvi was captured in Norfolk on Dec. 31, a day after the slayings. His arrest came just moments after he allegedly fired at the building that houses the Hillcrest Clinic.
In Wednesday's ruling, Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara said prosecutors had presented a ``preponderance of evidence'' proving Salvi was competent to go to trial. No trial date was set, but the judge said she was aiming for December.
Salvi, 23, is charged with shooting to death Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, and with wounding five others, including a security guard, at two Brookline, Mass., abortion clinics Dec. 30, 1994.
Lowney was a receptionist at the Planned Parenthood clinic. Nichols was a receptionist at the Preterm clinic, just down the street.
Salvi, who wore a bulletproof vest under his blue blazer, took the ruling without visible signs of emotion.
In past court sessions, he has shouted, tried to pass out copies of a typed statement alleging a worldwide conspiracy against Roman Catholics, and once had to be carried from the courtroom.
He has said he wants to stand trial and will accept the death penalty if convicted.
Salvi has maintained all along that he is sane, but his lawyers, J.W. Carney Jr. and Janice Bassil, have portrayed their client as schizophrenic, irrational and possessed of a single-minded obsession to get before the world his views on the persecution of Catholics.
At one point, Salvi tried to fire his court-appointed counsel because he did not want them to depict him as mentally incompetent and because he objected to their bringing in mental-health experts to buttress their argument.
Bassil said in an interview after the brief court session Wednesday that she was disappointed by Dortch-Okara's ruling. However, she and Carney seem to have anticipated that the judge would decide against them. Even before the ruling, they had put before a single justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court a motion to overturn the results of the competency hearing.
Bassil told Dortch-Okara that she expected the justice - Supreme Judicial Court Justice Herbert P. Wilkins - to rule on that motion early next month.
The prosecution team has said Salvi plotted the shooting spree out of a fierce opposition to abortion. Prosecutor John Kivlan said it will take him about three weeks to lay out his case during the trial.
Had the judge found Salvi to be incompetent, Salvi would have been committed to a state psychiatric hospital until he was determined to be competent to stand trial.
David Keene, the fiance of victim Shannon Lowney, said Wednesday that he never doubted Salvi would be found competent to stand trial for two first-degree murders and five counts of aggravated assault. But Keene said he felt it necessary to be there Wednesday and actually hear the judge say it.
``It was a great relief,'' said Keene, 28, who was to marry Lowney next month. ``I needed to hear those words in court.''
Salvi was captured Dec. 31, 1994, just moments after he allegedly sprayed the entry to the building that houses Norfolk's Hillcrest Clinic with at least 23 bullets from a .22-caliber, semiautomatic rifle.
An arson investigator who happened to be at the building at the time saw the shooting and alerted police, leading to the gunman's swift capture.
No bullets hit the clinic, which the gunman apparently did not realize was on the second floor. MEMO: Staff writer Steve Stone contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
John C. Salvi III: Mentally ill or just devious? A Massachusetts
judge heard opinions on each,
then ruled Wednesday.
by CNB