Ex-UCLA lecturer discovered mentally unfit to face trial in Colorado

A former postdoctoral fellow at UCLA who was arrested almost a yr in the past after allegedly threatening college students and workers was discovered mentally unfit to face trial final week by a choose within the U.S. District Court docket in Denver.

In a Jan. 27 courtroom submitting, Choose Raymond P. Moore wrote that counsel for defendant Matthew Harris filed a movement on Oct. 4 “for determination of Defendant’s competency to stand trial.”

An examination by a forensic psychiatrist discovered Harris “presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him incompetent to proceed,” the choose wrote.

The submitting states that psychological incompetence left the defendant “unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.”

Harris, then 31, was arrested Feb. 1, 2022, and charged by federal prosecutors with making legal threats throughout state strains after he despatched an 803-page manifesto and a video referencing a mass taking pictures to college students and school.

He threatened to kill a feminine professor, in keeping with a courtroom submitting from Might. His college students had additionally observed warning indicators within the classroom and on the previous lecturer’s YouTube channel.

Neighbors in Boulder, Colo., the place Harris moved after being dismissed from UCLA and was in the end arrested, and UCLA college students have voiced frustrations about lack of warnings from regulation enforcement officers about Harris’ violent threats.

The doc stipulates that Harris will probably be hospitalized and handled for psychological sickness to permit consultants to find out whether or not his psychological situation may enhance sufficient for him to face trial sooner or later.

The choose ordered a written report on Harris’ psychological situation by Might 27, or 4 months after the submitting.