A state judge declared a 25-year-old Nanakuli man not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday for beating and attempting to gouge an eye of one friend and trying to set on fire another friend with vodka.
Jamal Morris was facing a prison sentence of up to 10 years for attempted first-degree assault and up to five years for attempted second-degree assault. Circuit Judge Richard Perkins instead turned over custody of Morris to the state health director for commitment to the Hawaii State Hospital.
All three mental health experts Perkins appointed to examine him said Morris was not responsible for trying to harm his two friends in separate incidents in May because he was suffering from a psychotic disorder at the time.
Morris was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder just the month before the attacks. He was prescribed antipsychotic medication, but after his discharge from the Queen’s Medical Center’s Kekela unit for psychiatric patients, he stopped taking the medication. He told one examiner, "The worst decision I made in my whole life was to stop taking my meds."
He told the examiners he had seen a relative have the same experience at about the same age do well on medication.
The only other time Morris sought psychiatric treatment was for anxiety, when he was subpoenaed to testify in New York in a terrorism case against a friend he met in a Honolulu mosque.
A federal grand jury in New York indicted Abdel Hameed Shehadeh in December 2010 on charges that he lied to the FBI about his plans and attempts to join the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents fighting against American forces. The FBI arrested Shehadeh in Honolulu in October 2010.
A jury found Shehadeh guilty in March, and a federal judge sentenced him in September to 13 years in prison.
On May 11 police arrested Morris after he poured vodka on a 37-year-old man at a Moiliili restaurant and tried ignite the alcohol with a cigarette lighter. While free on bail, Morris punched and tried to gouge the eye of a 29-year-old University of Hawaii graduate student who had just given him a ride to the same restaurant from the mosque. Morris knew both men as fellow Muslims who worship at the mosque.
At the time of the attacks, Morris said his actions made sense to him because he believed the 37-year-old had cast magic spells on him and the 29-year-old was the antichrist. He said he also believed people were trying to poison him with menstrual blood and toenail clippings.
After getting back on his medication, Morris told his examiners that he realizes he was delusional at the time of the attacks and that his delusions were symptoms of his disorder.
