An expert witness will not be allowed to testify for Toby Stangel’s insanity defense in his upcoming murder and attempted-murder trial stemming from a 2011 freeway shooting spree, a state judge ruled Friday.
Stangel, 30, is accused of killing one Oahu motorist, injuring two others and firing at four other people, including two police officers, during the 17-minute early-morning shooting spree on June 3, 2011.
He is charged with one count of murder, seven counts of attempted murder, and firearm, drug and drug paraphernalia offenses. Three of the attempted-murder charges carry life prison terms without the possibility for parole.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday.
Circuit Judge Glenn Kim said he will not allow clinical psychologist Marvin Acklin to testify as a defense expert because his testimony would be used to support Stangel’s claim that his drug abuse caused his insanity. Hawaii law does not recognize voluntary intoxication as a defense for criminal behavior.
For the same reason, Kim also ruled Friday that Stangel cannot use the extreme mental or emotional distress defense, sometimes referred to as temporary insanity.
At the request of Stangel’s previous lawyer, Acklin examined Stangel and prepared a 24-page report which Kim described as clear, specific and extraordinarily detailed.
Acklin concludes in the report that Stangel “was experiencing a substance-induced psychotic disorder with paranoid delusional features at the time of the shootings,” Kim said.
Stangel’s current lawyer, John Schum, said Acklin re-examined Stangel after he prepared that report and now has a different conclusion.
“(Acklin) cannot say whether or not it was drug-induced or some mental health-induced cause or another factor that would have caused the (psychosis),” Schum said.
Schum told Kim that Acklin’s testimony would support the type of insanity theory in which long-term drug abuse causes permanent brain damage which, when combined with a pre-existing mental disorder, prevents a person from appreciating the difference between lawful and unlawful behavior.
Schum said Stangel was in a dirt-bike accident when he was an adolescent, suffering permanent brain damage.
“And from that time on he was under the belief that he had something implanted in his brain that allowed the government to monitor his thoughts and to control his thoughts,” Schum said.
He said Stangel later began a long history of drug abuse.
Stangel told at least two court-appointed mental health experts that just prior to the shootings he had taken cocaine, heroin, Xanax, marijuana and beer in addition to his prescribed dose of methadone for chronic pain.
Mike Stangel, a church pastor, said his son Toby was undergoing outpatient substance abuse treatment at the time of the shootings.