Circuit Judge Terence Perkins today found Brendan Depa, the 17-year-old former Matanzas High School student accused of assaulting a teacher aide in February, competent to stand trial.
The judge’s decision at the end of a three hour hearing followed testimony by two psychologists, one of whom described Depa as severely autistic, often violent and unpredictable, requiring “extreme” assistance and suffering since early childhood from deep and numerous disorder, including psychosis. The other described him as intelligent, aware, autistic but not so impaired as to not know how to navigate through a trial.
“You really got to watch it for yourself and see that in fact, he can control himself when he wants to,” Assistant State Attorney told the judge in her argument. “That’s really what this is about. I think there’s no doubt whatsoever that he’s a bright young man. he understands what’s going on, and he can control himself when he wants to and I’d ask that you find him competent.”
Kurt Teifke, Depa’s attorney, said he alone has spent more time with him than anyone else on that side of the bar in court today. “I have great concerns,” he said. “I am not confining my opinions to diagnosis. Not at all. I’m talking about its manifestations. I’m talking about the behavior and the interactions and frankly, everything that happens.” He described it as “a cocktail of mental health disorders that just waiting for something to happen” in court, undermining Depa’s right to due process.
“This was one of those circumstances where actually hearing from the doctors and the experts was some great assistance,” Perkins said, explaining his reasoning. Three elements drove his decision: the circumstances of Depa’s life, the circumstances of the attack (“how does this happen in a rational world”), and the suggestion of incompetence.
“Having considered everything in this regard, and understanding that this is a snapshot,” Perkins said, “I find that based on all of the evidence in this case, I find that Mr. Depa is competent to proceed in this case.”
Depa is being held in a jail for juveniles in Jacksonville. He faces a first-degree felony charge of aggravated assault following his attack on paraprofessional Joan Naydich, whom he threw on the ground in a school corridor before pummeling and kicking her unconscious until school employees stopped him. The attack was captured on surveillance video and drew international attention.
Perkins soon ordered a psychological evaluation to determine whether Depa would be competent to stand trial.
Depa was evaluated by two psychologists, both court-appointed. Roger Davis found Depa “smarter than most people,” bright, aware, and “competent to proceed,” following an 84-minute evaluation in May. Yes, he’s autistic. But symptoms alone aren’t enough to impair competency, Davis said, especially as Depa can–and does–benefit from therapy.
Jessica Anderton sharply disagreed. “In my perspective, Brendan clearly poses a danger to himself and to others and meets criteria for hospitalization,” she said.
She evaluated him on March 29 for two hours, a session that included “auditory hallucinations,” such as bursts of laughter he attributed to jokes he was hearing from voices in his head. The voices can be comforting. They can also be suggestive of violence or bad advice, and a potential “problem for me in terms of his ability to manage his behavior in court,” Anderton said.
If, for example, he were to burst out laughing in the middle of trial proceedings, that would reflect poorly on the jury, hurting his case. There were no such outbursts today.
He was able to recount what happened the day of the assault, but with numerous extraneous details. Anderton rated him “unacceptable” on a range of behavioral matters that would fall short of competency to stand trial, in her view.
He cannot rationally make decisions about his case, his circumstances or potential outcomes of proceedings. He is not even interested in working with his attorney.
“If he doesn’t have an adequate grasp of the scope of possible penalties, how could he possibly make rational decisions about whether or not to negotiate a plea bargain, whether or not to go to trial, how to proceed with this case,” Anderton said, “how to collaborate with an attorney and arranging a defense and making decisions? It cuts through every aspect of the trial process.”
There is also a racial matter in play. He described the charge against him as “an aggravated assault on a white woman,” Anderton said, “and this is something that he was very fixed on in his mind. that the charge is serious because of racial issues.” Depa is Black. He claims the charge would not be as severe if he were not Black. And he listens more often to fellow-inmates than he does to his own lawyer.
Clark, who is prosecuting the case, said that “could be viewed as cynicism” about the justice system, attributing it to what he may have seen on television in the last few years. Anderton disagreed, up to a point.
“Would you also agree with Dr. Davis that some of his Mr. Depa’s misunderstandings of the legal system could just be based on his age and lack of life experience?” Clark asked the psychologist. Anderton agreed on that score.
Depa appeared in court today and sat through the hearing. He took no part in the proceedings. He sat at the defendant’s table, looking down almost the entire time, and only occasionally feigning interest in the exchanges between lawyers and witnesses. He was guarded by a Flagler County Sheriff’s Office deputy rather than by a bailiff. Ninety minutes into the hearing, Depa put his head down on the table as if to go to sleep. The deputy nudged him to sit up. It happened repeatedly.
Depa’s intelligence is not in question: his IQ has been determined to be between 97 (in the average range) to 116 (above average). He’s been previously diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, attention deficit disorder. He has also been diagnosed with anxiety disorder, disruptive mood disorder. But those aren’t obstacles to competency to stand trial when put in the context of his everyday capacity to understand the circumstances of his case and its potential outcomes.
“He’s a bright young man,” Davis said. But he thought the maximum punishment he was facing was five years, and was fixated on that. It’s 30.
Teifke didn’t seem to have much left to work with–not in a state where the threshold of competency for trial is not much higher than sentience, awareness and basic intelligence.
Teifke had more to work with through the Depa evaluation he sought from Anderton, who drew a dire portrait of a young man with a “very complex combination of less obvious problems.” Testifying today, Anderton listed a very long list of disorders and conditions Depa suffers from, medications he’s prescribed, residential programs he was assigned to, including the one in Palm Coast, his last place of residence. That program will not take him back.
Anderton said he was assigned the one paraprofessional at Matanzas High School because he was unable to carry out his school responsibilities without an aide. He was being treated for psychosis, and has “frequent aggressive impulsive behaviors that are noted across settings,” Anderton said. She described a young man prone to “explosions” resulting from any of a number of circumstances that can go awry in his surroundings.
According to Anderton, “he seemed to believe that he should just be held in jail until he gets right with God or he’s learned his lesson,” suggesting a clear sense of guilt. (“He realized there was a high chance of conviction,” Davis said in his testimony.)
He is being held on the “mental health floor” of the jail, according to Anderton, his hygiene “mildly neglected” and his isolation pronounced, adding to his stress and making mood swings and behavioral problems more likely.
Teifke attempted to elicit testimony from Davis that would show Depa to have key misunderstandings of the case–that he didn’t appreciate the severity of the charge he faces even after speaking with Teifke two or three times, that he wasn’t retaining “salient” information, in Teifke’s words, that he couldn’t retain it for long even if he did learn it, and that he has a mental disorder.
That’s not enough for incompetency. “Just by mere virtue of having mental disorder doesn’t make one incompetent,” Davis told Teifke, pushing back every time Teifke tried to get Davis to bend. “Competency is not a very high threshold to meet,” Davis said, so while Depa did get answers to many questions wrong, he was able to correct them during the evaluation, and at times to surprise the psychologist with his accuracy.
When Davis asked him what he thought an insanity defense meant, Depa said: “You don’t have a grip on the world, so you can’t really be” aware of the act.
Teifke asked the psychologist whether Depa could understand some of the intricacies of his defense–how plea bargaining works, how adversarial the proceedings are, what mitigating circumstances are when evaluating penalties. Teifke was questioning whether Depa had the capacity to understand all that, just as he would of Anderton, when Anderton said Depa thinks the burden is on the defense to prove he is not guilty. (The burden is on the prosecution to prove his guilt.)
But even fully competent adults sometimes have difficulty grasping what, to them, is a completely alien system, until they become immersed in it day after day. Most never do, because attorneys simply don’t have the kind of time that affords immersion for their client. And it isn’t unusual even for adults to think intuitively that while the law requires the prosecution to prove a defendant’s guilt, jurors have presumptions of their own, knowing which, disproving that guilt is still very much part of most defense strategies. The more so when racial elements are part of the dynamics, as may be the case in Depa’s trial.
Teifke also alluded to Depa’s sense that the judge will not be impartial. But that’s not uncommon for defendants, either, Davis said.
“What confidence do you have in the durability of any of the knowledge that he is acquiring?” Teifke asked Davis.
“I believe he has the capacity to retain” information, the psychologist said. By then Teifke was circling back to the same questions, trying them out in different ways but getting the same result. Teifke even tried to make something of the fact that, well into Depa’s 84-minute evaluation, Depa got up from his chair, which was very uncomfortable, and told the psychologist that he didn’t want to sit anymore. Davis told Teifke there was nothing odd about that: the chairs were uncomfortable, and he let Depa stand.
But Teifke was onto something when he asked how Depa could possibly sit through the stresses of a multi-day trial, hour after hour, day after day, when that may be difficult for him to do even in n on-stressful circumstances. “I feel like I’ve answered that question,” Davis said. (The line of questioning on thats core was not necessarily meant only for Davis, but for the prosecution, too, in hopes of swaying a favorable plea agreement down the line.)
Depa’s responses during that evaluation were relevant to the questions posed, his hygiene was proper, he was tired from poor sleep but conversant and understanding. He did not have trouble responding or paying attention. He spoke of being frightened in jail (other inmates have called him autistic and “retarded”). “He created voices so he’s not alone. And so yes, he talked about voices but he talked about them not in a way that is suggestive of psychosis, but it’s more suggestive of having a companion,” Davis said.
But he spoke of reading of a monster in a book, dreaming about it, then seeing it. But that’s not psychotic behavior, Davis said: “You see something in a movie or read about it in the book, and you’re preoccupied with it, and then you might start seeing it,” Davis said. That’s not a psychotic” episode. His interests are limited to computers, more so than to relating to other human beings.
“But his ability to behave appropriately based on context the situation is going to be very important here, is it not?”
“Sure,” Davis said. But while that may be an issue, “in my estimation, it’s not a significant enough issue to impair competency.”
The psychologists’ testimony today also revealed that Depa is a client established with the agency for persons with disabilities already, that he was adopted in 2007, and that his history shows “severe behavioral and emotional problems from a very young age, escalating as he grew older,” according to Anderton, to the point that his parents sent him to a residential program because his parents didn’t feel he could remain at home safely.
Deirdre Rutledge says
If this situation brings awareness of the issues with dealing with mentally disturbed students and safety for all, it’s good that it’s going to trial.
An ‘on the spectrum’ diagnosis doesn’t normally require an assistant, and parents don’t usually have their child go to a group home for their safety.
His history of violence certainly indicates he should not have been in a school setting in the first place. What if he had killer her? What if he attacked another student? We need to be thinking more about safety than inclusion.
Having said that, this kid clearly isn’t competent to go to trial, hopefully the outcome will be that he is placed in a situation that he can’t hurt anyone else and gets the help he needs.
Jail in this situation is so wrong IMO, I don’t see how anyone could state he is truly in control of his own actions, and I’m shocked any psychiatrist would say he was, given his history.
Laurel says
Deirdre: I wholeheartedly agree with you. The people who should be scrutinized are the ones who placed this child in a regular class with people who do not specialize in autism, and who cannot restrained a child this large.
Tina says
It’s the new school principle to pull everyone down to the lowest common denominator they can find. I will agree he’s autistic, but he should never have been in school. Our society has closed all the mental hospitals that could have helped this kid, or at least kept him in control.
The dude says
Let’s be honest here… if he were white and lived in the Mondex, he’d be out walking the streets again already.
TR says
The dude, you have it all wrong. This as nothing to do with the color of someones skin. It’s because of his actions nothing more. Maybe you should look at it from what is under the law and not try to blame it on something else that has nothing to do with it. Do you wonder why there is still racism in this country? Maybe a look n the mirror will give you the answer.
The Geode says
LOL. Apparently, you are ignoring the current social climate of today. A white person would have been castigated and sentenced. Their every move would have been kept alive in local and national media to keep the narrative going
Kel says
Geode, I swear you are worse than Samuel Jacksons Character in Django! Seriously! You grew up in the last county to voluntarily integrate in the USA. Your school got burnt to the ground, dead lake was used to threaten and intimidate your kin folk , you couldn’t even get close enough to smell the salt water in Flagler beach until the late 80’s because of racism. The projects in Bunnell consist of the descendants of ex slaves, and you think white people need you to be a cheerleader or spokesperson? Pitiful. Your working hard for those butter biscuits.
Toss the key says
Did you witness the video of the beating he laid down on that teacher? This one needs be locked away and kept restrained.
John says
He should have never been in this class and he is severely mentally handicapped and they antagonize him
ASF says
He’s been in trouble before and in the system long enough to know how to play it.
He was playing it when the deputies took him into custody at the school, accusing them of “manhandling” him when they clearly weren’t. He was already looking a for a way out for himself.
Naughty Autie says
You clearly do not understand autism. May I suggest one of the courses available from https://www.autangel.co.uk/training to help you correct your lack of empathy and theory of mind for autistic people?
Mark1 says
Absolutely ridiculous someone claimed this young kid is competent to stand trail. He is obviously not. This county and Matanzas school in particular has a history of abuse against those with lower mental capacity. First Coach Ripley abusing that child and now this mishandling. Flagler County has got to to better for our developmentally disabled community.
Steve says
Baby Hughie playing the System IMO. Does he need help. Yes. Is he going to Jail. That is up to the Judge and Jury
Patti says
I have known Brendan Depa since he was a baby. I am his mom’s cousin. I have seen his lifetime of
struggle and all that his parents have done to help him.
I was in court for his competency hearing and I was also with his mom when he called her the night after
the hearing. He clearly did not understand what was happening. He sounded like a 5 or 6 year old child
in that conversation. He did not know I was listening in. It was the most heart breaking thing I have ever
heard. He told his mom he would never ever hurt another person. He told her he would, “Plead Mercy
with the judge.” He asked his mom where he would go when he got out. Through tears, his mom told
Brendan that he would likely go to jail. He did not understand why. When he could tell his mom was
crying he told her not to worry, he was safe and that they had put him back in the box. The box he
referred to is the solitary confinement cell he has been kept in for over 4 months.
We as a nation have to do better for the mentally challenged men women and children of this country. We need to ask for the best possible placement for this CHILD. It was noted in court that therapies do
help improve behavior in autistic children. We do not want the system to throw his life away. They should place him in a
facility that will allow him to continue therapy.
Brendan and his mom ended their conversation with a joint reciting of the Lord’s Prayer, as they always
do. They said “I love you” and then Brendan was alone again in his “box.” He is not a criminal. He is an
autistic child that needs the chance to become better through therapy and medication.
Paula says
I totally agree with you , Patty. Brendan has the emotional maturity of a 3 to 5 year old. I blame the school for not addressing his behavioral issues and placing him with an aide that was not properly trained to deal with him.
Patti says
Exactly. The school and home are to blame here .
Mary Fusco says
Patti, exactly how is the school to blame? If this young man has the emotional maturity of a 3-5 YO, why is he sitting in a high school class? If he is not capable of learning and spends his days playing games on a device, he is simply being babysat by the school district. The decision for what is best suited for him falls on his parents. Where are they?
Laurel says
Mary: “…exactly how is the school to blame?” “If this young man has the emotional maturity of a 3-5 YO, why is he sitting in a high school class?”
You answered your own question, with a question.
Jack says
WHere did you get the data that says his emotional maturity is that of a 3-5 year old? Is this speculation ?
Kathryn A Lopez says
Amen
Paula and Patti – from Mother of Autistic Daughter who just celebrated her 50th. She didn’t have a party on a cruise because she planned on bowling and cake and singing Happy Birthday like most of 7 years old.
KAL the GaL
Ryan Bishop says
Should’ve taught that animal how to behave better. There’s not a single context in existence that makes it ok for a male to hit a female. You and your sister are awful for expecting the school system to baby sit that lush. I can’t help that she adopted the wrong kid, but I hope she pays for every penny and I hope that animal gets locked in a cage.
Naughty Autie says
Ryan, may I suggest one of the courses on offer at https://www.autangel.co.uk/training ? Perhaps that will help you to understand Brendan Depa’s behaviour in the video.
Brooke says
Brendon Deppa is misunderstood here. The teacher definitely did not get what she deserved in the situation but she also miss handled it paraprofessionals, or give them better tools than just taking away devices that she knows would incite anger. I feel like she was not adequately trained to handle Brendan special needs. He made a mistake, but he doesn’t deserve to go to prison for it. His behaviors are not the same as a kid without autism. The paraprofessional should have known not to give, and take away technology from a student who has no control when it comes to those things. I feel bad for Brandon. He is intelligent he is kind he just made a mistake and the fact that he doesn’t understand the severity of the consequences does show his lack of life experience and mental capacity. If he did not have autism, he would not of reacted so violently end of story.
Jack says
You have made one very important mistake- SHE DID NOT TAKE IT AWAY- go back and reread the statement that she made.
ASF says
As it turns out, the victim here (meaning the paraprofessional) didn’t even take the mentioned device away. One wonders from the above post why this young man wasn’t placed closer in proximity to supportive family members.
It sounds like multiple people and agencies have tried to help this young man throughout his short life. Helping people also needs to include protecting the public from those with a propensity for violence who might pose a danger.
Deirdre says
Just want to add IMO this isn’t a black and white thing, and it’s not the fault of our schools or board members.
This kind of situation is happening in pretty much every school across the country, only you rarely hear about it, and it’s not likely to be caught in camera.
Also, what if this kid or any other did a surprise attack on an armed teacher and got their gun?
It’s going to happen somewhere, SUCH a bad idea to arm teachers.
An old friend says
I knew this kid when he was younger. He absolutely has mental health issues, and it isnt just “he can control himself when he wants to.” Its that he can control himself when things are going smoothly. Its when he’s thrown off his groove that he has difficulties. He needs special care, not to be thrown in jail.
If that end’s up being the case, it’ll just be another case of mental health being dismissed and another black guy who was deemed guilty before he even see’s the courtroom.
Anyone who disagrees clearly has no experience with mental health issues of this degree and doesn’t have the whole perspective of our current “justice” system.
Its a lot easier for the general public to lock him up and “toss the key” because we have always looked the other way when it comes to mental health and people of color. Out of site out of mind for you, but for his family this will destroy them.
There isn’t an easy answer to this question. Doing the right thing is hard, but we need to start figuring out how to do that.
ASF says
Common sense dictates that life does not–and cannot–always go smoothly… for anyone. The hope is that we can teach behaviorally challenged individuals (or those with other Brain Disorders whose Executive Functions are effected by their disability) different coping strategies. Sadly, this is not always going to suffice. In those cases, tough decisions may need to be made that will be uncomfortable in one way or another.
Public safety is as important an issue as individual rights. Maintaining a balance between the two requires careful deliberation which I hope will be possible in this case. At this point, I wonder if all the publicity being generated will make that even more difficult.
SteveO says
The comments on this article are disheartening and some are just plain stupid. This isn’t about his race. It’s not about the victim handling the situation incorrectly. It’s about a county, a state and a nation completely fumbling the ball with regard to mental health care.
The judicial system is not designed, nor equipped to handle mental health issues, especially one involving a minor. The attack was abhorrent, and the education system could have done more to prevent this. Sounds to me he should have been in a fully contained unit with staff physically capable of handling someone of his size with his specific care/education needs.
Regardless, the attack did occur. A para-pro was nearly killed. The attack was vicious and cannot be ignored and blamed on his mental health issues alone, then expect the young man to be returned to the community unchecked.
There is a fine line between locking away those with mental health issues that could result in harm to innocent members of society vs letting those who may have a propensity to harm others amongst the community. Jail is not place for them, though neither are the standard public school.
Institutions have been shuttered, there’s almost no place for a young man of this age, with his size and risk of further attacks to house him while he receives the mental health care he obviously needs. So, what do you do with him?
Juvenile jail doesn’t provide the care he needs. The public schools are not equipped for someone of his size and condition. The community and schools are at risk if he is not contained and treated. The answer is a community based, locked down facility equipped with the best and brightest mental health professionals. A facility that can in time educate him, care for him, treat him and in time integrate him back into society once his treatment is under control and he is deemed to no longer be a threat to himself and others.
Just up the road is the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. It’s a $250 million facility sitting on 82 acres of the most prime real estate in the area. Around the clock adult monitors, nurses, a fully staffed police department and police dispatch center. The State of Florida pours $30 million into the school a year. It’s the most successful, well-funded institution of this sort in the nation. Which is excellent! Which begs the question, why are we not funding mental health facilities similarly? Had we, and had the system recognized that he needed such a facility sooner, this entire matter would have never occurred.
ASF says
Excellent post! I suggest that the reason that we don’t have such facilities is because we, as a society, would rather ignore the problem until we are forced in the worst way to face the fact that they even exist. Mental health problems still carry a stigma. And for many people, the subject strikes closer to home than they would care to admit.
Also, such a committment takes $$$ that the public at large seems hesitant to pony up.
Naughty Autie says
As an autistic person myself, I have to ask what exactly this kid had been dealing with all day that the taking away of his NSwitch triggered a meltdown of such aggression. If the teacher had such a problem with the device, she should have taken it away at the beginning of the school day before the build up began and long before the console was required as a therapy device. Also, the ASA in this case clearly needs to take an autism awareness course created by autistic people to understand how the ability to not go into meltdown at the slightest frustration fluctuates (sometimes quite sharply) depending on what exactly has been going on in the autistic person’s immediate environment in the hours prior to the potentially triggering event. This kid is severely autistic, with even less ability than most on the spectrum to handle bullying as well as being more likely to be a target of it.