Man declared insane is sent to hospital
Mental health experts say he was not responsible for attacks on his two friends
SA: A state judge declared a 25-year-old Nanakuli man not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday for beating and attempting to gouge an eye of one friend and trying to set on fire another friend with vodka.
Jamal Morris was facing a prison sentence of up to 10 years for attempted first-degree assault and up to five years for attempted second-degree assault. Circuit Judge Richard Perkins instead turned over custody of Morris to the state health director for commitment to the Hawaii State Hospital....
The only other time Morris sought psychiatric treatment was for anxiety, when he was subpoenaed to testify in New York in a terrorism case against a friend he met in a Honolulu mosque.
A federal grand jury in New York indicted Abdel Hameed Shehadeh in December 2010 on charges that he lied to the FBI about his plans and attempts to join the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents fighting against American forces. The FBI arrested Shehadeh in Honolulu in October 2010....
A jury found Shehadeh guilty in March, and a federal judge sentenced him in September to 13 years in prison.
On May 11 police arrested Morris after he poured vodka on a 37-year-old man at a Moiliili restaurant and tried ignite the alcohol with a cigarette lighter. While free on bail, Morris punched and tried to gouge the eye of a 29-year-old University of Hawaii graduate student who had just given him a ride to the same restaurant from the mosque....
read ... a Form of Mental Illness?
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