TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — On Wednesday, a Hillsborough County judge Ruled Ralph Bouzy was not mentally competent to proceed with a trial.
Carlos Brito, the deputy who suffered the most serious injuries, was released from Tampa General Hospital on Tuesday and sent to a rehabilitation facility to recover from his injuries.
Bouzy was not in court on Wednesday when judge Mark Kiser accepted a report from a mental health professional and ordered he be sent to the state mental health hospital for treatment.
Randy Otto, Ph.D. has served as president of the American Psychology-Law Society, the American Board of Forensic Psychology, and the Board of Trustees of the American Board of Professional Psychology. He is not involved in this case, but has been involved in other high profile cases in Hillsborough County. He says in cases like this one, defendants are most often treated with medication.
“The overwhelming majority of criminal defendants who are adjudicated incompetent to proceed, what’s making them incompetent is symptoms of severe and persistent mental illness. It’s those symptoms that typically limit their ability to work with council, understand, participate in and make sense of legal proceedings,” Otto said. “So, they are typically committed to a secure forensic hospital to receive treatment, focused on those symptoms with the rational being, that if we control and manage those symptoms, their abilities to participate an understand will return.”
Otto said in most cases, the defendants mental status can be restored, but it can take time.
“The overwhelming majority of defendants who are adjudicated incompetent to stand trial or incompetent to proceed are restored. The conditions that render them incompetent, the symptoms, the impairments, are managed with treatment,” said Otto.
In this case, if Bouzy’s mental status can be restored with treatment, he can be returned at a later date to stand trial.
