Attorney shot during home invasion deemed unfit to stand trial
A once promising Chattanooga, Tenn., attorney, who made headlines earlier this summer when he was shot by a resident during a home invasion attempt, has been found unfit to stand trial.
Twenty-nine-year-old Michael Jack Fitzharris faces charges of aggravated assault, first-degree burglary, simple assault, entering auto, and terroristic threats and acts from the July incident, but was deemed not competent to stand trail last week in Catoosa County Superior Court.
According to his attorney McCracken Poston, Fitzharris has been ordered to complete a 90-day evaluation at the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Development to hopefully determine a plan of treatment.
“It’s a sad story,” Poston said. “Sadder still because I am hearing reports of extremely erratic behavior and thoughts by my client from over six months before the Catoosa County charges.”
On July 13, Fitzharris was arrested after an elderly couple claimed he forced his way into the couple’s home through a carport door, and then threatened to kill them.
Eighty-four-year-old retired Marine Delbert Hanshaw confronted him with a gun.
Catoosa County sheriff’s deputies found Fitzharris in his newly purchased Jaguar suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper right arm, reports show.
Fitzharris’ activities that day were also traced to an incident in East Ridge, Tenn., approximately 45 min-
utes before the home invasion, in which he allegedly came close to running over two police officers in a hotel parking lot.
In court, Fitzharris claimed several members of the Chattanooga court scene, including judges and attorneys, were “out to hurt him.”
At the time of his arrest, Poston said that Fitzharris was having some sort of mental breakdown.
Poston added that he wishes Fitzharris had a better support system around him at that time.
“An intervention by other lawyers or a judge could have diverted the issues and perhaps avoided the Georgia incident entirely,” Poston said. “He will be re-evaluated in 90 days.”