Judge in Capital Gazette shooting case rules that prosecutor's psychiatrist can testify at trial

BALTIMORE — The judge presiding over the Capital Gazette shooting trial ruled Tuesday that prosecutors didn’t do anything wrong when they sent the psychiatrist they hired to the county jail to investigate the gunman’s insanity claims, paving the way for the doctor to testify at trial in December.

In her ruling, Judge Laura Ripken rejected arguments by lawyers of the man who pleaded guilty to the murders of Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters that four of his constitutional rights were violated when Dr. Gregory Saathoff visited the county jail and interviewed dozens of employees as part of an investigation into the man’s sanity.

Twenty-six witnesses from the jail and the county sheriff’s office appeared in court Wednesday, Thursday and Tuesday at the request of Jarrod Ramos, 40, and his attorneys. Their testimony was part of the first court hearing after several delays in the case which now focuses on the gunman’s sanity during the June 28, 2018, mass shooting.

Defense lawyers argued that Saathoff using Ramos’ statements to staffers at the Jennifer Road Detention Center — where Ramos has been held for more than two years pending trial — in his report on Ramos’ sanity amounted to an interrogation and violated his right against self-incrimination; he should’ve been told his comments could be used against him in court.

Public Defender Matthew Connell also said that Saathoff looking through a window into Ramos’ cell constituted an illegal search and that prosecutors and jail administrators conspired to gather evidence that disputes Ramos’ insanity defense.

The defense’s arguments, in part, hinged upon the idea that Ramos had some expectation of privacy in jail, a notion that prosecutors fought back against.

Ripken said in her ruling that Ramos did not have any expectation of privacy as it related to someone looking through his cell window. She also said Saathoff looking through the window did not equate to a search, that Ramos was not interrogated and that jail staff, not knowing that their daily interactions with Ramos would ever be subjected to court scrutiny, did not solicit incriminating information from him.

“Nothing even close to such an attempt occurred,” Ripken said.

Assistant State’s Attorney David Russell categorized defense attorneys’ arguments as a “conspiracy theory.” Prosecutors maintained that looking through a window from a place you’re entitled to be doesn’t equate to a search and that Ramos has limited, if any, expectation of privacy in jail. They also say that detention staff’s normal interactions with Ramos are just part of daily duties; not interrogations.

Though Ripken ruled in favor of prosecutors Tuesday, which means Saathoff will be allowed to testify at trial, what he is allowed to say at the stand will be the subject of legal argument. Ramos’ defense attorneys have filed papers with different legal arguments about why they believe Saathoff should be prevented from saying he believes Ramos was sane. Those motions have yet to be addressed in court.

Ramos pleaded guilty to the murders and 17 related offenses in October, but he maintains that he is not responsible for his crimes because he was insane when he committed them. He has asked for a jury to decide in December whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison or be remanded indefinitely to a secure state psychiatric facility.

Saathoff is just one of a number of mental health professionals lined up to testify for the proceeding, which some lawyers refer to as a “battle of the experts.” A forensic psychiatrist with the Maryland Department of Health is expected to testify that he believes Ramos was sane at the time of the attack in Annapolis, while a psychiatrist hired by the defense is expected to say she believes he was insane.

Unlike the other experts, Saathoff hasn’t interviewed or tested Ramos. Ripken twice denied prosecutors’ requests that he be allowed to do so. In light of the judge’s ruling, prosecutors sent Saathoff to the jail.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors questioned a range of correctional officers, from guards all the way up to Superintendent William Martin, and sheriff’s deputies, including Sheriff Jim Fredericks, and detention center medical staff, from nurses to the resident psychiatrist, and even the jailhouse librarian.

Connell’s questions focused on who arranged for employees to meet with Saathoff.

Some nurses testified that they felt obligated, or like they “had to,” speak to Saathoff because their supervisors approached them about it, while guards said their sergeants, equipped with a list of some of their names, brought up Saathoff’s visit and asked whether they’d be willing to speak to him and they obliged.

Many jail employees were unsure of exactly how they ended up being interviewed by Saathoff, which they recalled in testimony to be short meetings in a conference room in the jail’s administration area or a brief telephone conversation. Saathoff asked simple questions and they answered, jail employees testified.

But when State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess asked each employee if “they were forced to talk to Dr. Saathoff,” they all said no.

Leitess also asked jail personnel about Ramos’ former housing block. Her questions, however, focused on the openness of the setting.

One warden testified that passersby in the jail could see into the unit segregated from the general population — and even into the seven cells inside — through large glass windows abutting what he described as a “main thoroughfare” of the jail. Guards, nurses, administrators or members of the public on a permitted tour through the jail walk through the big hallway regularly, he testified.

Connell also asked about the housing unit Ramos lived at the time of Saathoff’s visit, where inmates are locked in their cell 23 hours a day and are allowed one hour of recreation in a secluded catwalk, to prove that Ramos lived in an “extreme custody” environment where he had no choice but to communicate with jail staff.

Connell equated jail employees’ observations on Ramos’ behavior, which Saathoff referenced in a report in which he said he believed Ramos was sane, to police detectives going to the jail to gather evidence of a crime, which he said would be a surefire violation of an inmate’s rights.

“What is benign in one context is interrogation in another,” he said of nurses checking in on Ramos and later talking to Saathoff about those regular inquiries. The nurses did not know they’d ever talk to Saathoff, but he said information was incriminating in the context of an insanity plea. “They’re talking to people about Mr. Ramos’ demeanor, his manner … and they’re doing it to shed light on his mental state.”

The hearings have also provided for previously unknown excerpts from Saathoff’s (at this point) confidential report on Ramos’ sanity. He relied on 75 sources of information, including interviews with 35 jail employees and sheriff’s deputies, to come to conclusions about Ramos’ sanity.

One nurse testified that she told Saathoff that Ramos swore at her. A correctional specialist said Ramos appeared to enjoy the fact that his presence at the cell window frightened her once. Medical staff said that after being responsive at first, Ramos rarely acknowledged their presence at his cell door after weeks or months in jail. Meanwhile, guards testified Ramos asked them for things like any other inmate.

Two more days of hearings for pretrial legal matters are scheduled for September, a few months before jury selection begins for the second time in Ramos’ case.

(Capital Gazette is owned by Baltimore Sun Media.)

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