PORT ORCHARD –– A trio of psychological professionals testified about the effects that going without anti-psychotic medication had on accused double-murderer Michael J. Pierce during a hearing to dismiss those charges Monday.
“He was suffering quite a bit,” Dr. Henry Levine, a Bellingham psychiatrist enlisted by Pierce’s defense, said via telephone in Kitsap County Superior Court.
A hearing on a motion for the dismissal of charges against Pierce, 38, of Quilcene was continued for a third day, and is set to resume this morning after testimony from mental health professionals did not finish Monday afternoon.
Pierce, wearing an orange prison jump suit with a chain around his waist Monday, was convicted four years ago of the murders of Quilcene couple Pat and Janice Yarr, a conviction that was later overturned on appeal.
Testimony is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. in Kitsap County Superior Court, 614 N. Division St., Port Orchard.
His client should not be subjected to a fourth trial, said Pierce’s attorney, Richard Davies of Port Townsend, in his motion for dismissal, since “the failures of previous trials are solely attributable to the State.”
He cited “barbaric” treatment by Kitsap County, which discontinued Pierce’s psychotropic medications midway through the March trial before Judge Sally Olsen.
After discovering medications were denied Pierce on March 7-10, Olsen ruled his right to a fair trial had been “impossibly infringed” and declared a mistrial.
Dr. Richard Yocum of Western State Hospital told the court via telephone how Pierce described to him the experience of being in court March 10 after four days without his medication.
“He did say it was ‘horrific,’” Yocum said.
Pierce was convicted by a Jefferson County jury in 2010 of two counts of first-degree murder as well as one count each of first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery, first-degree arson, theft of a firearm, second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and second-degree theft.
That conviction was overturned by the state Court of Appeals in last year, ruling Pierce’s constitutional rights were denied after his arrest and that Prosecuting Attorney Scott Rosekrans’ closing argument in the original trial represented prosecutorial misconduct.
Pierce has been tried two times since, once in Jefferson County and once in Kitsap County, with both ending in mistrials.
A third retrial is set Oct. 9 in Kitsap County Superior Court.
Levine said Kitsap County’s contracted jail psychiatrist’s “incompetent evaluation” worsened Pierce’s hallucinations.
He said Dr. Kapil Chopra, a psychiatrist from Sound Mental Health who contracts with Conmed to serve as Kitsap County’s jail psychiatrist, erred when he let jailers stop administering Pierce’s medication.
Chopra briefly testified before Judge Olsen stopped Monday’s hearing, breaking down the Conmed checklist he fills out when meeting with inmates who need psychiatric care.
Chopra said he fulfilled that duty when he initially met with Pierce on March 11, the day after testimony stopped for a court-ordered mental health evaluation.
Yocum met with Pierce on March 17, and ruled Pierce could not have been mentally present during the March 10 hearing because of the lack of medication that prompted Pierce to break out in sweats, fail to concentrate and worry about who was looking at him.
He pointed to a telephone call from Kitsap County jail on the evening of March 9 which Pierce made to his brother and mother, however, to say the effect Pierce felt from a lack of medication was “not entirely consistent with his self-report.”
Jefferson County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Chris Ashcraft played that phone call Monday.
As his mother talked about a new dog and goats getting into the house, Pierce asked his brother to come watch the trial.
“I’d like for you guys to sit up front,” he said to his brother.
“It’s all down to the wire now,” he told his mother.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
