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Defendant to plead insanity

The Pasco woman, accused of fatally shooting her neighbor in 1998, is awaiting retrial.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published October 4, 2005

DADE CITY - The stage is set for the latest legal battle in the coming retrial of Sylvia Neeley - who is accused of murder - over the insanity defense.

Neeley's attorney will use it to defend the 44-year-old woman, who was known as Sylvia Maraman seven years ago when she was accused of fatally gunning down a neighbor. She said he bragged of molesting her 12-year-old mentally handicapped daughter.

"We're planning on relying on it," Assistant Public Defender Tom Hanlon said Monday of the new defense strategy.

Neeley was insane at the time of the crime, May 24, 1998, according to a defense motion filed in September. But Hanlon said that's all he could comment on before the motion goes before a judge, who must decide the issue before the jury trial.

"I can't go into any specifics," he said.

The prosecution is ready to oppose it. Assistant State Attorney Manuel Garcia said the state has argued in a countermotion that it isn't a proper defense in this case because Neeley is charged with second-degree murder.

"Insanity is not a legal defense for second-degree murder," he said. "Because second-degree murder is not a specific intent crime."

It could be a defense for first-degree murder, where premeditation is key, Garcia said. That's what Neeley faced at her first trial in 2000.

But when Neeley was convicted that year, the jury found her guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder.

When she goes back to trial, second-degree murder will be the highest charge before the jury. The next court hearing is Oct. 25, and the retrial is scheduled to start Nov. 28.

Meanwhile, the case continues to drag on. That raised the ire of Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper back in July.

Hanlon said then that his office struggled to obtain needed medical and psychological records from jail, and needed experts to look at them. The defense motion lists an expert: Dr. Walter Afield, a Tampa psychiatrist.

Authorities say Neeley fired five rounds into 73-year-old neighbor Arthur Danner, reloaded, then shot him in the groin. Fueled by alcohol and pills, authorities say, Neeley made a damaging confession in the back of a Pasco County Sheriff's Office cruiser.

"I went and got a gun and came back and shot him," she said on the tape.

But Neeley said Danner had bragged that he had molested her daughter and could do so again.

She was convicted in 2000, but the 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned that conviction in 2002. The higher court ruled that Circuit Judge Maynard Swanson erred by not letting Neeley's attorney argue that the mother had a right to protect her daughter with force.

Neeley was freed on $200,000 bail in December of that year, when she also married prison pen pal Joey Neeley. She now lives in west Pasco, working and waiting for her retrial.

[Last modified October 4, 2005, 02:15:30]