THE GAZETTE
Page A-10
CRASH
Continued from Page A-1 Gaithersburg just before 2:30 p.m. Friday. Police said two cars were traveling north on Muncaster Mill Road, just past the Shady Grove Road intersection. At that point, the two northbound lanes merge into one. The two cars, a Honda Accord and a Chrysler Sebring, collided as the lanes began to merge. The Accord, driven by 17-year-old Oscar Javier Fuentes of Gaithersburg, struck a utility pole. Seventeen-yearold Hugo Fernanda Da Silva Rompante of Gaithersburg drove the Sebring, which crossed over the sidewalk, struck French and another girl, and hit a tree, according to police. Thirteen-year-old Emily Grace Lowe, the second pedestrian, survived, police said. She is in stable condition. Both girls were students of the Covenant Life School in Gaithersburg, a block from the site of the crash. William French said the two girls were friends. His wife, Monika French, would drive her
Observers: Defendants face challenges pleading insanity
daughter to and from school each day. Gaithersburg residents Johnny Allen Boykin, Jr., 19, and Keanu Ashton Lee, 17, were passengers in Rompante’s Sebring. Fuentes, Da Silva Rompante, Boykin and Lee all attend nearby Magruder High School, according to police. Contact information for relatives of Fuentes, Lee and Boykin was not available. Rompante’s family declined to comment. The Lowe family could not be reached through a listed number, but spoke out through a blog post on Covenant Life Church’s website. Emily’s “road to recovery is expected to be a long one,” the blog post said. “While we covet your prayers, it is best that [she] does not have visitors right now so that she can get the rest she needs.” The Covenant Life community held a vigil for the girls on Sunday. A private funeral is scheduled for Thursday at a chapel at Fort Myer in Arlington, Va.
Plea requires medical evaluations, high threshold of evidence n
BY ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH STAFF WRITER
The two women accused of slaying two toddlers in an attempted exorcism in Germantown face charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, but haven’t been arraigned yet. Lawyers for the women, Zakieya L. Avery and Monifa D. Sanford, said it is too soon to discuss their clients’ cases in detail, including the possibility of them pursuing a “not criminally responsible,” or insanity, defense. During bail hearings for the two women this month, prosecutors said both women have a history of mental illness. According to Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy, Avery told police that she once was involuntarily committed for psychiatric care. Sanford told police she has tried to commit suicide twice. “The state’s attorney’s statements present a pretty compelling case for a lack of criminal responsibility,” said David Felsen, Sanford’s attorney, before declining to discuss his client’s case further. Byron L. Warnken, a University of Baltimore law professor, said that obtaining a “not criminally responsible” verdict is a “very difficult hurdle” for defendants. In Maryland, if a jury finds a person guilty, and the defen-
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DEATHS
Continued from Page A-1 sessing them, skipping from child to child, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Covenant Life Church holds a community prayer vigil for Teressa Rosalind French at the Gaithersburg church on Sunday evening. French, 16, a Covenant Life School student, was killed at the scene of a crash outside the church on Friday.
PLANS
Continued from Page A-1 looking at dedicating one lane to BRT with buses traveling in both directions. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for this fall. In 2015, planners hope to begin a state-funded study of the Md. 355 corridor from Bethesda to Clarksburg, Lattuca said. He hopes that study will be finished in 2016. Buses are planned to stop at the Rockville Metro station, which could pose problems at the already-busy intersection. The BRT buses, which
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 r
RATE
Continued from Page A-1 2013 in the dropout rate, which fell about 0.5 percentage point to 6.3 percent. Since 2011, the dropout rate has decreased by about 1 percentage point. Montgomery’s dropout rate stands about 3.1 percentage points below Maryland’s 9.4-percent rate. Among the school system’s 25 high schools — 16 of which saw graduation rate increases from 2012 to 2013 — the highest increases from last year include Rockville’s 4.8 percentage points, Springbrook’s 4 percentage points, and Clarksburg’s and Northwest’s 3.7 points. Wheaton High School saw the greatest decline in its graduation rate, dropping to 68.6 percent in 2013 from 76.1 percent
probably will be longer than traditional buses, might have trouble getting into the station. “The Metro station’s a challenge,” Lattuca said, adding that planners should discuss whether the station meets the community’s needs. Gunning said the intersection of Md. 355 with Park Road and Middle Lane at the Metro station is already one of the worst in the city, even without the addition of BRT buses. “That is on our radar screen,” he said. “...We’re not quite sure how that’s going to flow yet.” ewaibel@gazette.net
dant’s lawyers can establish “not criminally responsible,” or NCR, the defendant cannot be punished, he said. “You can put me away, where you put other involuntarily committed people ... and I might get out in one-tenth of the time, or 10 times longer, [than a convicted criminal]. It has nothing to do with punishment. It has to do with, ‘Do I pose a danger to myself, to others and to the property of others?,’” Warnken said. In a 911 call on the evening of Jan. 16, a neighbor told police that Avery left one of her children in her car for about an hour. During the call, Avery came out of her house and accosted him. In the call, which police released to the public, the caller told dispatchers Avery was “responding to internal stimuli.” The caller explained that Avery appeared to be talking to herself. During Avery’s bail review, McCarthy said the women told police they had seen demons possessing the children and turning their eyes black. Avery has been transferred to a secure psychiatric hospital. Before her case can go forward, mental health experts have to evaluate whether she is legally “competent,” or understands the charges against her and can assist in her defense. A similar evaluation has been ordered for Sanford. Dr. Neil Blumberg, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said that when defendants might have mental illnesses, health officials check if there’s a history of mental illness or drug
abuse, and learn about their early development. In cases in which mothers kill their children and there’s no history of being abused or abusing children, most are psychotic or responding to hallucinations and delusions, he said. If Avery and Sanford are found not competent, they will go through a process to “restore” them to competency, lawyers said. That would involve medication and other treatment. Judicial proceedings would continue after they finally reached competency, McCarthy said. The length of that process varies widely, possibly taking months or years, said Steven D. Kupferberg, a local attorney. Once restored to competency, the women would be evaluated by a state psychiatrist to determine whether they were “not criminally responsible” when the accusations took place. In that case, their defense attorneys would need to prove that their clients are either unable to appreciate the criminality of their conduct or unable to conform their conduct to law, said Paul Kemp, a local defense attorney. Then, they would plead guilty, but not criminally responsible. “The only cases where the defendant is usually found to be NCR is where they are separated from reality, or psychotic,” Kemp said. Waging an NCR defense requires a defendant to admit to the facts of the case. “The initial burden is on the defendant. ... You have to come in with an opinion [of NCR] from a psychiatrist,” Kemp said.
“The hardest thing is you don’t have a client on the other end of the line helping you when they really have that condition,” he said. Scott Shellenberger, state’s attorney for Baltimore County, would not comment on the charges against Avery and Sanford. Speaking of NCR cases generally, he said: “The problem is whenever someone does a particularly heinous act, it’s normal for regular folks to say, ‘They must be crazy,’ but that doesn’t mean they weren’t criminally responsible.” One way evaluators try to determine that is if a defendant tries to conceal the crime. “That’s best way to know — if they did it, and tried to hide it, that’s the best indication they knew what they were doing was wrong,” Shellenberger said. Rick Finci, a local attorney who has handled many NCR cases, said NCR pleas “are not extremely popular defenses.” The reason, he said, is that “jurors are scared of these people, the people who are so severely mentally ill and have not been treated and act out violently.” Even if an NCR case goes to trial, there is a jury to convince, Kupferberg said. Cases requiring an NCR defense are usually so serious, people look at them with a “finetooth comb and magnifying glass,” Kupferberg said. “And their sympathies won’t be with the defendant. They will be with the victim, and generally, that’s what makes the most difference,” he said.
McCarthy said at Avery’s Jan. 21 bail review. The women, who lived on Cherry Bend Drive in Germantown, have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of at-
tempted first-degree murder in the deaths of Avery’s 1-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter on Jan. 17. Police also have charged the two women with attempting to kill Avery’s two other children,
ages 5 and 8. Police found the two toddlers washed and wrapped in blankets on Avery’s bed. Avery and Sanford were arrested Jan. 17, and have been held without bail since.
in 2012 — about 7.5 percentage points. Sixteen high schools saw an increase from 2012 to 2013 among black students and 12 high schools saw an increase among Hispanic students. Of the high schools that showed an improvement among special education students, several school saw significant rate increases, including Paint Branch with a jump of 21.8 percentage points and Quince Orchard with a jump of 19.2 points. School board President Philip Kauffman said he is encouraged by the improved graduation rates but also wants to learn more about how ready students are for college or a career after they leave high school. Addressing ESOL students’ data, Kauffman pointed to recommendations in Superintendent Joshua P. Starr’s proposed
operating budget that direct more resources to ESOL services. “I think that’s something we need to do,” he said. School board member Christopher S. Barclay (Dist. 4) said the school system needs to “take ownership” of its responsibility to help prepare ESOL students for the future. “We can’t do that if we’re not helping ensure they get all the way through (high school),” he said. Barclay said he thinks the school system needs to be as “aggressive” and “intentional” as possible to produce signficant changes in student performance, including those of black, Hispanic, and free and reduced-price meals students whose graduation rates are below those of their white and East and South Asian peers. “We’ve got to make larger leaps in those groups really to deal with those gaps that we see,” he said.
Rockville High Principal Billie-Jean Bensen said that, while this academic year marks her first at the school, she has seen the continuation of recently started efforts that she thinks have helped students reach graduation. Among other work, the high school has used team meetings — which pull together counselors, resource teachers, administrators and others — to talk about each student’s individual needs, she said. In contrast to the school system overall, Rockville High’s 2013 data included a jump in ESOL students’ graduation rate to 85.7 percent from 41.7 percent in 2012. Bensen said school staff work hard to provide a variety of supports to ESOL students beyond those found in the ESOL classes. “That data in particular is just amazing,” she said.
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