Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Girl's killer Tate says he's 'hearing voices'

Lionel Tate, facing life in prison on a probation violation, wants a psychological exam.

FORT LAUDERDALE - Facing a possible life prison sentence, convicted child killer Lionel Tate won postponement of a Monday probation violation hearing after writing a letter to the presiding judge claiming he is "hearing voices" and has contemplated suicide.

Broward Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus granted Tate's handwritten request for a psychological examination and set a competency hearing for Dec. 19 to determine whether Tate is capable of understanding the charges against him and their consequences.

Tate, once the youngest person in modern U.S. history sentenced to life in prison, is on probation for murdering 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick in 1999, when Tate was 12.

Tate, now 18, is accused of violating terms of his probation by robbing a pizza delivery man at gunpoint in May and possessing weapons, either of which could return him to prison for life. If he is found competent, his probation violation hearing would likely be rescheduled for January.

In his letter to Lazarus dated Thursday, Tate complained that his public defender, H. Dohn Williams, "doesn't know my mental condition," even though "I stated to him before that I was hearing voices and that I wanted to kill myself."

Tate also cited a Florida law requiring a psychological evaluation upon request.

Asked to comment, Williams said, "I can't tell you what Lionel thinks." Williams said a psychologist examined Tate over the weekend, but those preliminary results are confidential.

Broward County prosecutors declined to comment.

Tate was found competent for legal purposes before he reached his plea agreement on second-degree murder charges in January 2004. That plea came three years after Tate's initial first-degree murder conviction and life sentence, which were thrown out by a Florida appeals court, in part because it was unclear from the court record whether Tate understood what was happening to him before and during trial when he was 13.

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 02:15:34]