Criminally insane killer to go free after 26 years
Cloar believed Jesus ordered him to kill
A Tennessee appellate court is setting free a Morristown, Tenn., man deemed criminally insane 26 years ago because he believed Jesus commanded him to slaughter his father and stepmother.
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday ruled David Cloar should be freed from the state’s only lockdown facility for the criminally insane without any mandatory plan to guarantee he will continue to take the medication that staves off his psychosis or receive treatment.
Cloar, then a 35-year-old Vietnam veteran, inexplicably attacked his father, Jack Cloar, with a knife at his father’s Morristown home in 1990, repeatedly plunging the weapon into his father’s chest with such force it laid bare his organs. He then chased his stepmother, June Cloar, outside, nearly decapitated her with the same knife, walked away but returned because he said Jesus told him “you need to finish the job.”
He stabbed the knife into her chest, took off his shoes and sat down. Police found him still sitting there in his blood-soaked clothes. A jury later deemed him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was sent to the Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute. He’s been there ever since. The facility, which has only 18 beds, has been trying to free him for at least 15 years, arguing his obsession with religion and other signs of psychosis are kept in check with medication.
Last year, 3rd Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wright again refused to free Cloar, who is represented by attorney John Eldridge. Wright acknowledged he could not forever prevent Cloar’s release, particularly when officials from the mental health facility insisted his mental illness was in remission with medication. But Wright was troubled by the facility’s aftercare plan, which did not require mandatory outpatient treatment or any supervision to ensure Cloar continues to take his medication.
“You know whose face is going to be on ‘20/20’ if he goes out and puts a knife in somebody else? It’s going to be his face and my face,” Wright said at last year’s hearing.
But in an opinion authored by appellate Judge D. Kelly Thomas Jr., the appellate court said the Legislature, in passing the law on the requirements for freeing the criminally insane, put no such requirements of mandatory treatment after release in it.
“The discharge plan cannot be rejected for failing to provide safeguards that the applicable statute does not require or address,” Thomas wrote.
The appellate court credited Cloar’s testimony that he has made plans to avail himself of psychiatrist services at a Veterans Affairs medical facility, to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and live for 90 days in a residential group home. None of that is required, nor can it be under the law, the court ruled.
“[Prosecutors] and the trial court’s focus on transitioning the defendant and a plan ‘which had some accountability’ were misplaced,” Thomas wrote. “We understand and sympathize with their concerns. However, the statutory scheme reflects the considered judgment of the state Legislature as to the proper balance between the need to protect the public from the person while at the same time protecting the person from unjustified detention.”