An avowed racist knew right from wrong in 1980 when two Bond Hill teens were shot to death from a railroad trestle, according to two psychologists who examined him.
Those conclusions likely mean that an insanity plea won't be an option at Joseph Paul Franklin's October trial, said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters.
"I don't expect this to be an issue," he said. "The trial won't last long."
To use an insanity defense, Mr. Franklin would have to show he had a mental disease or defect that gave him the inability to distinguish right from wrong or the inability to act lawfully, Mr. Deters said.
Common Pleas Judge Ralph Winkler received reports Wednesday on Mr. Franklin's mental state and set an Oct. 5 trial date. He said he could not release the reports because they are medical records that aren't subject to public record laws.
But it was said in court Wednesday that Mr. Franklin, 48, refused to talk to a third psychologist. His attorney, Dale Schmidt, told the judge he would try to arrange for an examination with that psychologist. Mr. Franklin, who complained about his jail accommodations at his April court appearance, did not appear in court Wednesday. He was not feeling well, Mr. Schmidt told Judge Winkler.
Mr. Franklin has said he's killed 21 people, including 13-year-old Dante Evans Brown and 14-year-old Darrell Lane, both of Bond Hill. The cousins were shot from a train trestle as they walked along Reading Road in Bond Hill.
He had been a suspect in the deaths almost since the boys were shot. But police never had enough evidence to charge him.
Last year, after an assistant Hamilton County prosecutor assured him he could not be sentenced to death in Ohio, he told authorities he committed the crimes. Ohio's death penalty law was invalidated in 1980.
"I didn't want to be on death row in Ohio -- they have the electric chair there," he told The Cincinnati Enquirer last year.
But Mr. Franklin has already been sentenced to death in Missouri and has racked up multiple life sentences in several states.
If he is convicted of these two deaths, it would mean another two life sentences.
