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Teen ruled competent this time, takes plea
By CARRIE JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer
INVERNESS -- A teenager who claimed he intentionally flunked a psychological exam has been judged competent to stand trial and has accepted a plea agreement to settle a pending criminal case. Brandon German, 17, was the subject of an emergency hearing last Friday after he told Assistant State Attorney Jeffery Smith that his former lawyer had coached him on how to fail an exam that determined whether he was mentally competent to proceed through the court system. At the order of Circuit Judge Ric A. Howard, German was evaluated by another psychiatrist, who determined the youth was competent. It was the fourth time German had been evaluated. The results were announced during a status conference Tuesday. Over the objections of his current lawyer, Jim Cummins, German then accepted a plea agreement rather than stand trial on four counts of burglary. He will be evaluated by the Department of Juvenile Justice before a sentence is imposed. Smith said he would recommend German be sent to a mental health facility. "All this time he has spent in jail has been wasted," Smith said. "He could have already been receiving treatment." Cummins said he still thought his client was incompetent to stand trial. He said German has an IQ between 60 and 80, which makes him borderline mentally retarded. During Tuesday's hearing, Cummins had to explain the consequences of the plea agreement to his client several times. At one point, German told Judge Howard that he didn't understand his plea. "They are abusing an incompetent child as far as I am concerned," Cummins said during an interview Wednesday. "I don't think justice is being allowed here." German had been evaluated by experts three times. While he was initially found incompetent, a second exam, done at the request of the State Attorney's Office, declared him mentally sound. A third evaluation was done as a tie-breaker, and German was found to be incompetent to proceed in the court system. He was placed in the Juvenile Detention Facility in Marion County while he waited for a slot in a mental health facility. Being declared incompetent does not mean a defendant was insane when the crime was committed. It applies only to the ability of a defendant to understand his current circumstances and assist his attorney at trial. The controversy erupted last week after Smith informed the judge that German had called him from the facility and said he had been instructed on how to fail the psychological exam by a lawyer, who has since left the case. The State Attorney's Office is investigating that claim. -- Carrie Johnson can be reached at 860-7309 or cjohnson@sptimes.com .
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