Showdown looms in Moore beheading case
NORMAN — The Muslim convert responsible for a 2014 beheading is being given two chances to stand by his guilty plea now that a judge has ruled he is mentally competent.
The judge Thursday ruled against defense attorneys who had contended Alton Alexander Nolen is too mentally ill to plead guilty knowingly.
Nolen, 32, of Moore, has asked the judge to give him the death penalty for beheading a co-worker at a Moore food plant on Sept. 25, 2014. He pleaded guilty last May to firstdegree murder.
Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley put off deciding whether to accept the guilty plea until she could get more evidence about his
mental state. She ruled Thursday he is competent after hearing from three psychologists who have evaluated him.
She also heard from a psychiatrist, nurses and others who interacted with Nolen while he was at the state mental hospital in Vinita last fall for observation. She also heard from detention officers about his aggressive behavior while in jail.
Her ruling sets up a showdown with Nolen, who caused a disturbance Monday morning during testimony by the first witness at the competency trial. He was removed from court and did not return.
By law, Nolen must acknowledge in court that he stands by his guilty plea and wants to go ahead with the sentencing. So far this week, he has refused to say anything when the judge asked him by video if he wanted to come back to court.
On Thursday afternoon, he stood in the jail’s video arraignment room with his head down and his mouth moving as the judge spoke to him.
The judge told attorneys she will inform him Friday morning by video how she ruled. She said she will ask him to come to court Friday so she can accept his guilty plea.
If he says nothing, she plans to give him one more chance — on Tuesday. District Attorney Greg Mashburn asked the judge to force Nolen to court Tuesday to be questioned about his intent.
The sentencing should start Tuesday if he stands by his guilty plea. The judge said she will call off the sentencing and order a jury trial if he refuses to say anything both Friday and Tuesday.
In her ruling Thursday, the judge said, by law, a defendant is presumed to be mentally competent and capable of self-determination. She said defense attorneys had not met their legal burden in their effort to show he is not.
The judge heard Wednesday from a defense psychologist who concluded Nolen “suffers from a psychological disorder, most likely schizophrenia.”
She heard Thursday from two psychologists who testified for the prosecution. Both concluded Nolen was not mentally ill, just difficult and uncooperative. The judge called Nolen the most examined and evaluated defendant she has seen in her judicial career.
“Mr. Nolen’s behavior is at times bizarre, there’s no doubt,” the judge said.
After the ruling, the district attorney told reporters, “When you’ve got — basically — experts on both sides that see the same evidence and come down on two sides of the aisle, then that doesn’t really prove that he is incompetent. He’s presumed competent, and she didn’t hear any evidence that changes that presumption.”
In asking to be executed, Nolen has said the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment for his actions under his religious beliefs.
He admitted with his guilty plea to first-degree murder that he beheaded Colleen Hufford, 54, inside Vaughan Foods. Prosecutors said he attacked her shortly after being suspended for making racial remarks.
He also pleaded guilty last May to assault and battery with a deadly weapon for trying to behead another co-worker, Traci Johnson, and to assault with a dangerous weapon for confronting a plant official with a knife.
On Friday, the judge plans to hold a one-day hearing on whether Nolen is mentally retarded. She already has ruled once before that he is not. She must take up the issue again because of a U.S. Supreme Court prohibition against executing mentally retarded criminals.
She said she will have the hearing Friday, regardless of whether Nolen comes to court or not.