Deaf, sight-impaired man not competent to face child porn charges
Thursday, February 19, 2009
By Tommy Witherspoon
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A deaf and sight-impaired man was sent to a state mental hospital
Wednesday to help him attain competence to face child pornography
charges in Waco.
After an agreement between prosecutors and an attorney for Osbaldo
Lopez, 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson ordered the 30-year-old
to be treated at Austin State Hospital.
Lopez is mentally competent to stand trial. However, he is legally
blind with a degenerative eye disease and cannot hear or speak, making
it difficult for him to understand the criminal proceedings against
him or assist his lawyer with his case, defense attorney Gerald
Villarrial said.
Lopez was assisted at the brief hearing Wednesday by an interpreter
for the deaf. The judge allowed him to keep his University of Texas
baseball cap on in court because Lopez indicated that the glare from
the courtroom lights hampered his impaired vision.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of child pornography in July 2006.
However, between the time he pleaded guilty and sentencing, officials
realized that he didn’t have the degree of understanding about his
case and the judicial system that was necessary to proceed.
Lopez captured the attention of the state attorney general’s
cybercrimes unit when he posted 50 images of child pornography on an
Internet group in June 2004, according to court records filed in his
case.
Officials raided his apartment on the Texas State Technical College
campus, seized his computer and arrested him on child pornography
charges. They also seized a computer at his parents’ home in
Pearland, reports indicate.
After he was freed from jail on bail, Lopez returned to Pearland,
where he reportedly worked with someone to try to increase his
literacy and communication skills.
However, he apparently “made very minimal gains” in those
efforts, leaving him incompetent to fully understand the charges or
communicate with his attorney because of his disabilities, according
to a Jan. 21 report from Waco psychiatrist Steven L. Mark, who was
appointed by the court to evaluate Lopez.
Villarrial said Lopez remains “linguistically incompetent,”
adding that experts he has consulted predict he may never improve to
the level of competence, particularly as his vision worsens.
757-5737
Source:
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/02/19/02192009wacblinddeafporn.html