Psychologist a rms mental competency evaluation

EL CENTRO — The forensic psychologist who initially interviewed and determined murder defendant Ioan Laurint was not competent to stand trial testified at length Thursday about how he formed his opinion.

After more than four hours on the stand and much pointed questioning, San Diego-based psychologist Francisco Gomez concluded his testimony by again asserting Laurint was not competent enough to stand trial.

Gomez said he had come to his initial determination through a forensic evaluation that included a clinical interview of Laurint, an unsuccessful attempt to conduct a psychological test, a review of third-party information and an evaluation of whether Laurint was faking his alleged mental illness.

Much of Gomez’s four-hour testimony consisted of him having to defend his evaluation’s methods and conclusion during cross-examination by the county District Attorney’s O ce.

His defense of his mental evaluation of Laurint also included critical remarks about a mental health professional’s evaluation of Laurint performed at the request of the DA’s Office that determined Laurint was competent to stand trial.

That evaluation, Gomez alleged, failed to take into account Laurint’s preference for speaking Spanish rather than English, and likely resulted in an inaccurate determination since it was conducted in English.

The issue of whether Laurint was capable of adequately communicating in any language played large in Thursday’s proceedings.

Part of the criteria for concluding a defendant is not competent to stand trial an inability to effectively communicate with an attorney as part of his defense in court, as well as understand his status in the court proceedings.

While Gomez asserted in court that Laurint was largely incapable of communicating and understanding his legal situation as a result of his impaired mental health, county Assistant District Attorney Deborah Owen questioned whether Gomez took the proper steps to determine if Laurint was faking his reported symptoms.

During one exchange, Owen repeatedly asked Gomez to produce a specific example of a question that was posed to Laurint that had elicited a response that helped Gomez determine Laurint was unable to understand the court proceedings.

Gomez responded he could not recall the exact questions and answers generated during his October 2017 and December 2017 interviews with Laurint, but that Laurint was generally unresponsive or had provided incorrect responses.

He also disclosed that he did not keep a verbatim record of the questions and responses generated during the interviews.

Gomez’s disclosure prompted Owen to ask him whether the failure to keep a concise record of the content of the interviews reflected poorly on his employment as a forensic psychologist.

In turn, he responded that his 20 years of practice have been well served by his ability to recall the overall themes and observations generated during a clinical interview, which in turn inform his report’s findings.

Owen was also able to produce documented instances where it appeared Laurint had communicated effectively in English and Spanish about his ongoing court case.

One example was a 51page letter that Laurint reportedly had written in English to a companion that made references to the alleged murder victim, Ann Marie Zimmermann.

While Gomez acknowledged the letter was written in English, he characterized its tone and content as mostly “rambling.”

Similarly, Owen produced records Laurint reportedly authored in English with the use of the county jail’s digital communication system that had requested the use of the law library as well as medical attention from the jail’s nursing staff.

In response, Gomez said he couldn’t be certain that Laurint indeed had authored the digital communication system’s correspondence and that it was possible another inmate had assisted with their drafting.

Owen also directed Gomez’s attention to recorded jail telephone conversations, in Spanish, documenting Laurint’s request to have his female friend contact his defense attorney Donald Levine on his behalf.

During the recorded phone conversations, Laurint also reportedly disclosed to his female companion that he was unhappy about being in jail and that he was concerned about possibly spending more time in custody as the result of a possible guilty conviction, according to court testimony.

When presented with such evidence of Laurint’s ability to not only communicate, but also refer to his status in the court proceedings, Gomez responded that, in his professional opinion, the content of those same calls also provided clear evidence that Laurint did not fully understand the court proceedings.

In one conversation, Laurint was not able to recall the name of his attorney and was reportedly under the mistaken impression that he had two attorneys, one of whom was a woman.

Gomez’s evaluation of Laurint would prompt him to diagnose the defendant as a major depressive with psychotic features, a finding consistent with third party reports.

Gomez had been hired by Levine to perform the mental evaluation of Laurint with funds provided by the county for the defense of indigent individuals in local custody, testimony revealed.

The day’s testimony was closed out by Levine’s direct examination of Imperial County Behavioral Health Services supervising clinical psychologist Louis Blumberg, one of two ICBHS employees who also performed mental competency evaluations of Laurint that had both determined he wasn’t competent to stand trial.

On Monday, Blumberg is scheduled to begin cross-examination by Owen, since there is no proceedings in the mental competency civil case today.

By law, Laurint is presumed to be mentally competent to stand trial, and the burden of proof to establish his incompetency rests with the defense. The current court case to determine Laurint’s mental competency has placed his criminal case on hold.

He is accused of killing El Centro-based attorney Zimmermann on Feb. 17, 2017 at a motel on Adams Avenue.