DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — The man accused of beheading his father in their suburban Philadelphia home early this year and posting a video of the severed head online is competent to stand trial, a judge ruled Thursday.
Judge Stephen Corr ruled from the bench after a nearly five-hour proceeding that unfolded with Justin Mohn, wearing a yellow jumpsuit with ''inmate'' printed on the back and with his hands cuffed in front of him, seated in court and smiling, nodding or shaking his head throughout testimony.
Corr also granted Mohn's wish to dismiss his public defender and appoint a different attorney to handle the case. Asked whether he'd be willing to work with a new attorney, Mohn responded: ''Absolutely.''
The ruling means the case, which captured headlines with Mohn's arrest at a National Guard base two hours from his and his parents' Levittown home and after the gruesome video had already been viewed numerous times online, will go forward.
The hearing had several surreal moments, with Mohn nodding along and smiling widely at prosecution witness Dr. Kelly Chamberlain, a forensic psychologist, who testified that she found Mohn in her two meetings with him to be intelligent, calm and socially appropriate.
Chamberlain testified that Mohn apparently objected to his attorney's strategy of using a mental health defense and that he seemed appropriately ''self-interested."
She disputed the findings of defense expert witness Dr. John Markey, who said he had met with Mohn four times and determined at first that he had schizophrenia, but on Thursday said it was delusional disorder instead. He pointed specifically to Mohn's letters in which he said he claimed to be the messiah, a King David-like figure whom the federal government was persecuting.
Mohn came to believe his own public defender was a federal agent working against him, Markey said, and he wrote a letter to Russia's ambassador to the United States seeking to strike a deal to give Mohn refuge and apologizing to President Vladimir Putin for claiming to be the czar of Russia.
