LAKEPORT — The fate of Clearlake resident James Wade Roberts was handed over to a jury Wednesday afternoon after attorneys made closing arguments in his murder trial. If Roberts is found guilty, the same jury will be tasked with deciding whether Roberts was sane or not at the time of the killing.
Roberts is accused of murdering his former roommate Ruth Donaldson by strangulation and by stabbing. Donaldson shared a Mullen Avenue house with Roberts, his mother Jill Mancuso and four other people at the time of her Oct. 15, 2006 death. Roberts pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in March 2007 and is being held at the Lake County Jail on $1 million bail.
A central issue in the trial was the differing expert opinions about Roberts”s mental state at the time of the incident. Dr. Albert Kastl diagnosed Roberts with a combination of psychotic disorders that caused Roberts to have delusions and hallucinations. Roberts testified in March that God told him to kill Donaldson. He described the directive as a “knowing,” not a as a voice.
Lake County District Attorney Jon Hopkins called to the stand Dr. Thomas Cushing and Dr. Douglas Rosoff, who disagreed with Kastl”s diagnosis of a psychotic disorder. In his closing statements, Hopkins said psychologists in Roberts”s history of incarceration and psychological evaluation diagnosed Roberts with antisocial personality disorder with occasional psychotic episodes, mostly due to drug and alcohol abuse. Hopkins referred to Roberts”s positive test result for methamphetamine in his system a day before the killing.
“The issue is what is his (Roberts) intent, what was going on in his mind. If malice aforethought was not there, the killing can be involuntary manslaughter. But the facts don”t fit that, because it requires no intent to kill, and you do not have to have a conscious disregard for human life,” Hopkins said, referring to an instruction presiding Superior Court Judge Arthur Mann read to the jury after the defense and prosecution rested Tuesday.
Hopkins continued, “The issue in this case is, did Mr. Roberts commit second- or first-degree murder?”
Defense attorney Stephen Carter told the jury that involuntary manslaughter was the most appropriate verdict. He said 20 doctors had evaluated Roberts in his lifetime, and 18 of them diagnosed a psychotic disorder.
“He (Roberts) was acting under the delusion that God was acting through him. That is not a willful act with some knowledge of what was going on. You heard him say, ?I tried to resist it and then I couldn”t.” He was not capable of understanding what he was doing,” Carter said.
Carter continued, “When someone acts upon a fixed, firm belief, and they are under the type of delusion that it is not them doing it, but God through them, they are not guilty of first-degree murder or second-degree murder, but involuntary manslaughter.”
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
