Jury to decide if Greyhound bus shooter was legally insane during 2020 shooting
The responsibility of deciding whether a Texas man was legally sane at the time of a 2020 shooting on a bus is now in the hands of a Kern County jury after both attorneys gave their closing statements Monday in the second phase of the defendant’s trial.
Anthony Devonte Williams was found guilty earlier this month of first-degree murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm on a person. He killed Elena Lurbis Vence, injured five others and threatened to shoot another person on Feb. 3, 2020, while on a Greyhound bus traveling over the Tejon Pass.
The second phase of the trial began last week to evaluate whether Williams was legally sane at the time of the shooting.
Williams is being represented by Deputy Public Defenders Nick Roth and Samantha Sark. Roth argued that Williams suffered from mental illness and acute psychosis at the time of the shooting.
During the first phase of the trial, Roth said many passengers saw Williams speaking to himself and he was agitated. The police report from the California Highway Patrol submitted to the Kern County courts said Williams told a booking nurse that he was previously suicidal.
Roth said at Monday’s hearing Williams thought his life was endangered and that Williams heard voices. When Williams saw a passenger speaking in Spanish, he believed that the passenger was speaking about him.
“Even if I don’t understand it, you feel enemies,” Williams told CHP officers during an interview in an interrogation room. A video recording of the interview was shown in court.
Roth said Williams believed he and his family were in danger and thought someone hacked his phone and had his personal information. So, he said, Williams shot at people on the bus in self-defense.
But Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Taconi said Williams was not shooting people in self-defense. Taconi argued that Williams actively made a choice to shoot people on the bus, knowing that he might injure people. She said Williams knew what he was doing at the time of the shooting and admitted so several times.
Taconi said Williams called his grandmother to tell her about the shooting and told her not to hire an attorney. Taconi also said that Williams stated in his interview with CHP that his fears did not play into his decision to shoot people on the bus.
“I knew exactly what I was doing when I pulled the trigger,” Williams said in the video while speaking to CHP officers.
However, Roth said he questioned Williams’ ability to judge right from wrong, and that Williams was doing what he felt was necessary to protect himself.
Both attorneys also discussed the possibility of malingering, defined as faking or exaggerating a mental illness.
Taconi said some of the doctors and medical professionals who testified believed that there may have been some kind of malingering.
However, Roth said the malingering argument was a red herring argument meant to distract from the severity of Williams’ mental state.
Roth had a scoreboard system of how many medical professionals who testified believed Williams was medically insane. He said of the five medical professionals who testified, 3.5 of them believed Williams was medically insane — three agreeing and a half for one professional who was testifying on something not directly related to the sanity evaluation. One medical professional believed that Williams was medically sane.
The jury that decided on Williams’ guilty conviction for the shooting will now decide whether he was medically insane.
