Walgreen’s arson judge runs out of patience

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel has reached the end of his patience with delays in a hearing to overturn the conviction of Walgreen’s arsonist Donald Ray Williams, court papers reveal.

“I’m sorry to be irritable, but this case is starting to get to me,” Judge Fogel told attorneys on Jan. 28.

“It’s been a long time. You need to understand that. Counsel needs to understand that. This case needs a resolution.

“And to say that due process has been given in this case is the greatest understatement since saying that Mt. Everest is a big mountain.

“I mean the court has bent over backwards so many times to facilitate due process in this case that I feel like a pretzel on sale in Philadelphia,” Fogel said.

He said the attorneys had better wind up their arguments and come to court on Feb. 4 ready to argue for and against throwing out Williams’ Jan. 29, 2009, conviction for setting fire to the historic Walgreen’s building on University Avenue in 2007.

Williams’ attorney, Susan Steiger Dondershine of Palo Alto, filed a request to overturn the conviction in federal court in San Jose on the grounds that Williams was incompetent during the 2008-2009 trial and never received a psychiatric evaluation despite more than 20 years of severe mental illness.

During a motion on evidence, Fogel grew irritated by additional potential delays voiced by attorneys.

Fogel told the federal prosecutors that any additional motions or briefs must be substantially new or else he would deny a request for further continuance.

“So I think everybody should plan to be here with bells on and ready to go on Feb. 4thbecause that’s when I’m going to be here ready to have this hearing. I just can’t be any clearer on that,” he said.

Williams’ sentencing stalled after Dondershine became his new counsel in March 2009. She filed papers in April of her intent to challenge the conviction on Constitutional grounds that he wasn’t competent during his trial and that his former attorney was incompetent.

Judge Fogel and federal prosecutors agreed to stay William’s sentencing in order to have him evaluated and treated by psychiatrists in a federal correctional facility in Los Angeles.

Williams has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He was not receiving adequate treatment in county jail and was psychotic at the time, according to court papers.

Since that hearing, he has been transferred twice from the county jail to the federal facility because of psychosis. Court documents stated that a hazardous-materials team had to clean his jail cell because of its condition.

In court papers filed in late December, Dondershine said Williams was suffering from mental disease to the extent that he did not understand the nature and consequences of the court proceedings.

Williams “was obviously and patently psychotic” during his trial and could not assist in his own defense, Dondershine told the court. During the period of his trial from Feb. 22, 2008, through his conviction, Williams was continually observed by Santa Clara County jail staff and medical and psychiatric professionals, who described him as having auditory hallucinations, in addition to rambling, being agitated, not making sense, being delusional and having disorganized thoughts, among other displays. He said he was “living in the White House” and at one point tried to hang himself in his cell, she said.

“There is a shocking disconnect between what was going on in court and what was going on in Mr. Williams’ head,” Dondershine wrote.

Williams previously had been found incompetent in several state cases and was committed to mental hospitals, Manuel Araujo, Williams’ former federal public defender, wrote in a memo requesting funding to hire a psychiatrist.

But Araujo said he did not want to declare a doubt about Williams’ competency in court because he did not want the government to have the report. Williams’ talkativeness during a psychiatric evaluation could make him say things harmful to his case, he said.

Prosecutors Gary Fry and Daniel Kaleba told the court that Williams had plenty of opportunity for a competency hearing — if one was needed.

They said Araujo had filed a motion for a competency examination on July 25, 2008, and the prosecution did not object. But on Aug. 12 Araujo filed a withdrawal of the mental-competency request, stating his client was now taking medication and he believed Williams was competent to stand trial.

Prosecutors argued against the new trial on procedural grounds — a defendant has only seven days after conviction to request a new trial unless there is new evidence, they said. The request for a new trial is also “not ripe” because the defendant has not yet been sentenced, they added.

During Williams’ trial, the court carefully went over all aspects of the competency statute to be sure the defense counsel was certain of Williams’ ability to stand trial. Araujo and a supervisor both met with Williams to confirm their judgment, prosecutors noted.

But Dondershine said in response that Williams’ case is different from that of other retrospective-competency arguments given that he has had a long history of mental incompetence. Williams did not suddenly come up with a competency issue several years after being convicted, she said.

The court’s own observations of Williams’ mental state during pre-sentencing hearings and the orders to send Williams for treatment in Los Angeles are also good evidence to raise doubt about his mental competence during his trial, she said.

The prosecution’s insistence on strict adherence to a filing timeline while dismissing “the bottom line” to convict a man who is mentally incompetent “is a breach of its own duty to independently raise and disclose and not bury its own doubts of Mr. Williams’ unfitness for prosecution,” she told the court.

“Just in light of the overwhelming mental facts … the government would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to have such doubts,” she wrote.

Williams is scheduled to appear in federal court in San Jose on Thursday.