Case may meld hate-crime charge, insanity defense
Suspect admitted to ramming retired officer
FOND DU LAC – The case against a man charged with killing a retired police officer by hitting him with his pickup truck could combine two rare elements in a Wisconsin court case: a hate-crime charge and an insanity defense.
Prosecutors say the killing of retired police officer Phillip A. Thiessen, 55, of Fond du Lac is a hate crime because Thiessen was targeted because of his race – Thiessen was white and defendant Daniel Navarro, a Mexican-American, told police he intended to kill a white person.
Statements Navarro is accused of making to police immediately after the crash – unless his attorney can get a judge to throw them out – would likely eliminate several potential defenses.
“Navarro stated he intentionally crashed into the motorcycle, head-on,” District Attorney Eric Toney said in a criminal complaint. Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Sgt. Logan Will, who spoke with Navarro minutes after the July 3 crash, said Navarro told him, “It was intentional, sir.”
Navarro’s truck left no skid marks or other signs he tried to avoid Thiessen before a head-on collision on Winnebago Drive in Taycheedah, the complaint says. There is no evidence the two knew each other before the crash.
Prosecutors also say Navarro said white people had been harassing him, “giving him acid” and contaminated him with a chemical sterilizer.
Navarro, 27, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide with a deadly weapon as a hate crime, and first-degree recklessly endangering safety with a dangerous weapon, as a hate crime. He is in Fond du Lac County Jail in lieu of $1 million bond.
Navarro is due in county circuit court on Wednesday for arraignment.
The law since 1988
Hate crimes – crimes motivated by bigotry – became illegal under a measure the state Legislature adopted in 1988.
Then Rep. David Clarenbach, DMadison, authored the bill after incidents including cross burnings, the painting of a swastika on a synagogue and the killing of a white woman walking in a mall parking lot with a Black man, according to a 1988 report in the Janesville Gazette.
“If a man is assaulted because he is Black,” Clarenbach said, “the penalty for assault should be enhanced to reflect the intimidation connected with the crime.”
Hate crime “enhancers,” as they are known, allow increased fines and prison time for crimes that target people because of race and ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender. A judge can add up to $5,000 and/or an additional five years in prison to the sentence of someone convicted of a hate-crime felony.
Race and ethnicity remain the most common reasons for hate crimes in the state, and in the nation, statistics show.
Nationally, the FBI says, Blacks were the targets of 1,943 hate crimes in 2018 – more than any other race. Next are whites, at 762, and Latinos, at 485.
Today, Wisconsin’s hate-crime cases remain fairly rare, U.S. Justice Department figures show.
Since 2014, when 51 were reported, the numbers declined for two years, then nudged back up to 46 in 2017, and rose again to 53 in 2018, the most recent year for which figures were available.
When he spoke to deputies at the crash scene, and detectives later that night, Navarro told sheriff’s officials he hadn’t nodded off at the wheel. Nor did he claim Thiessen was riding in a way that would have caused Navarro to think he needed to defend himself against the motorcyclist, based on what witnesses told police.
That limits his options in terms of a criminal defense, meaning his best defense might involve employing an “insanity defense” – making the case about his mental condition.
That approach – pleading not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, commonly labeled an “insanity defense” or “NGI” – is available, but rarely used. Black’s Law Dictionary says it’s employed in less than 1% of Wisconsin criminal cases.
Defense Attorney Jeffrey Jensen wasn’t available for comment but had indicated after a brief court proceeding in July that he might consider a defense based on Navarro’s mental health.
In an insanity defense, the defendant must admit he or she committed the crime. A defense attorney must then convince the court that his client couldn’t understand his actions were wrong and couldn’t stop himself from committing the crime.
The defense could also convince a court the defendant knew his actions were wrong but couldn’t “conform his conduct to the law” – something Marquette University Law Professor Michael O’Hear called “the irresistible impulse.”
At trial, both sides will call expert witnesses who’ve examined the defendant. The defense’s expert will likely testify that the defendant should be found not guilty because of his mental condition and the prosecution’s will disagree.
Even then, a successful insanity defense won’t necessarily keep a defendant from being locked up for a long time. Defendants who are found guilty, but not responsible, are typically confined to a psychiatric institution, not released into the community or sent to prison. And in Wisconsin cases where a jury accepts an insanity defense, a judge can reject that finding.