Use of Insanity Plea Requires Serious Thought

Matters of insanity are fascinating to talk about, but when it comes to using the issue as a defense for murder, the plea rarely works.

During the past decade in Ventura County, about a dozen criminal defendants have pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, said a local prosecutor. In only two cases, though, have juries agreed with the plea.

Both of those trials occurred in 1997. One involved an elderly Fillmore man who snapped and strangled his ailing wife. The other involved a 43-year-old La Crescenta man who shot an Ojai woman and her father because he thought they were demons.

“It’s an unusual plea, and not that many people have tried it,” said Richard Holmes, supervisor of the major crimes unit of the district attorney’s office. “The problem is it usually isn’t true, and it usually doesn’t work.”

The burden of proving insanity rests on the defense, and the standard is high. Lawyers must convince a jury that a defendant has a mental defect, that he or she didn’t understand the nature of his or her actions and did not know right from wrong at the time of the crime.

Come January, we will know whether accused killer Socorro “Cora” Caro, 43, will get to use the defense. She is being examined by psychiatrists since pleading insanity last week to charges of fatally shooting three of her sons as they slept in the family’s Santa Rosa Valley home Nov. 22.

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Parents: What part of this lesson isn’t sinking in?

Exactly two weeks after a 1-year-old Ojai girl was accidentally fatally shot in the head with a BB gun, authorities say another local youth was injured by the same type of weapon.

An 11-year-old Ojai Valley boy was treated July 15 for a minor wound to his arm after his friend accidentally shot him with a BB gun while the two were playing. No charges were filed and police would not give out any names.

Nancy Gomez was accidentally shot July 1 by her 8-year-old brother who had been firing at avocados in the family’s frontyard. She died two days later at a Santa Barbara hospital.

Two days after that, the Gomezes publicly pleaded with parents to learn from their family’s tragedy.

BB guns are legal, but a federal consumer safety board has recommended the weapons not be used by anyone under 16 and encourages parental supervision.

“Any type of weapon that can fire a projectile can be dangerous,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Rick Hindman. “You must always be aware of what you have in your hand.”

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Peers of Oxnard Police Senior Officer Paul Cumming must salivate when he tells stories of being a constable in cop-friendly Scotland.

Cumming, one of six people recently promoted by Chief Art Lopez, is part of a handful of officers in the Southland who have worked abroad, according to a recent television documentary.

The differences in day-to-day policing in the two countries, Cumming said in a recent interview, are dramatic.

For example, during his eight years with the Strathclyde police, Cumming said, officers did not need probable cause to pull over a vehicle or stop a person on the street. Search and seizure laws in Scotland are also liberal in favor of police, he said.

“Those ways have helped build a society over there that is much more respectful toward authority,” Cumming said. “I think constitutional rights are very important, but your criminal element here seems to have too much ability to avoid the law.”

Cumming also noted that the political wheels in Scotland seem to turn faster than in America, allowing Scotland to swiftly pass sweeping gun laws in the wake of school shootings and other random acts of gun violence.

Cumming’s career in Scotland, which ended in 1993 when he moved to Oxnard, wasn’t always so smooth, though.

In 1988, Cumming was sent to work on the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie. He spent two weeks looking for bodies, marking wreckage sites and providing security. That detail instilled a fear of flying that Cumming has to this day.

Despite missing his homeland and extended family, Cumming said the grass is pretty green on this side of the pond.

The uniforms are hipper, the weather is sunnier, the people are nice and the pay is far better.

Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or at [email protected].