Thursday, May 31, 2012

ayres Conservatorship Hearing Reminder



REMINDER: Upcoming ayres Probate Hearing:
Tomorrow: June 1, 2012
Hall of Justice and Records, 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA
case number PRO122027



william hamilton ayres, a child molester accused of molesting many young boys while alleging to provide psychiatric care is seeking to have his daughter Barbara Ayres appointed his medical conservator, so that she will be able to make medical, but not financial decisions for ayres.

This hearing is the continuation from the 4/25/2012 hearing. At that hearing, ayres' conservatorship was tabled until June 1, pending the results of the defense request in the criminal case to have ayres released from Napa State Hospital. That motion was denied, and so ayres has not yet been released. As such, I expect that it's likely that the June 1, 2012 hearing will be table again until after determination is made in the criminal matter.

Hard to say though....

The hearing is open to the public, any anyone wanting to attend can do so at the address above.

To read more about the hearings read these:

Opinion: ayres' Imminent Release
Ayres' Daughter Has Petitioned to be His Conservator (For links to court documents)

For more extensive background on the case please read the "About william ayres" tab on top of the blog.


To look at the court record, follow the link below. (Note that sometimes you have to click the link several times, the first two clicks don't always seem to work right.):

Case PRO122027 - CONSERVATORSHIP OF WILLIAM AYRES .

Monday, May 14, 2012

Brief Update: Civil Cases, Schedule Change

In case anyone has been planning to attend tomorrow's hearing for three of the five (that we know of) civil cases against william hamilton ayres relating to his child molestation of young boys, there has been a date change.

On June 5, 2012 there is a hearing on the plaintiff's attorney's motions to remove the stay previously imposed, and allow the civil trial to be scheduled.

On July 3, 2012 there is a case management hearing for these three cases. 

So tomorrow's case management hearing is cancelled. The ayres court date calendar has been updated accordingly.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

ayres' Unraveling Dementia Gambit

Right from the get-go, we've been reporting that ayres' claims of incompetency have been highly suspect.

In April of 2007, william hamilton ayres was arrested on charges of molesting multiple young boys. He claimed that he was giving medical exams while providing psychiatric services for the boys. In addition to the victims who were young enough to file criminal charges, there were more than 30 men who independently claimed and corroborated that they too were out of statute victims of ayres’ child molestations.

Ayres stood trial in June of 2009. The trial ended in a hung jury, with most, but not all of the jurors voting that he was guilty of child molestation. On several of the counts the vote was 11-1 in favor of a guilty finding.

After the mistrial, the DA decided to proceed with re-trial. At this point ayres fired his attorney Doron Weinberg, and hired attorney Jonathan McDougall to handle his case. McDougall’s immediate gambit was to have ayres claim that he was not competent to defend himself, and therefore the criminal trial should not proceed.  Dubious claims were made that ayres was suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, and was having trouble with recall.

Doron Weinberg had actually laid some of the groundwork for this claim: at the beginning of the criminal trial, he provided ayres with a cheat sheet of  “nouns” that ayres sometimes had trouble with and claimed that ayres was having trouble with some recall. During the trial ayres himself took the stand, and performed nearly flawlessly, at least from a “failing memory” perspective. There were perhaps two or three occasions when he actually seemed to stumble on a word – overall, stellar, for the amount of stress he must have been under. Conversely, he demonstrated that he was singularly focused on the topics of interest to him: in particular, his claims that he was better and more qualified to give “physical exams” than even pediatricians are, AND his clear fascination with the genitalia of pre-pubescent boys.

The normal procedure in a “not-competent to defend oneself” situation appears to be that the court appoints a couple of non-biased doctors to assess the defendant. If both doctors are in agreement, then the judge can make a call, and if they determine that the defendant is competent, they can decide to proceed directly to criminal trial, if everyone agrees. The defendant however, has a right to a competency trial even if all medical experts agree that the defendant is competent.


In this case, there were delays just appointing two doctors, as ayres is well known in the area, and was a former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Eventually, the court found two non-biased doctors to evaluate ayres. Both reported that ayres was competent to assist in his own defense at trial. Rather than accept this determination, McDougall demanded a competency trial for his client, to allow a jury to decide if they believed the non-biased court appointed doctors, or any doctors that the defense could hire to find a determination of incompetence.

On the morning that the competency trial was to start, one of the two court appointed doctors changed her report to indicate that ayres was not competent to defend himself. It was not publicly stated why this change occurred, but we do know that the doctor re-evaluated ayres prior to filing the changed report. The court then hired a third doctor to evaluate ayres; That doctor also determined that ayres was indeed competent to stand trial on criminal child molestation charges against him.

The competency trial proceeded, with ayres’ biased, paid doctors claiming that he was incompetent.

THAT trial also ended in a hung jury, and rather than retry the case, the DA agreed to the stipulation that ayres was indeed not competent to defend himself, and he was shipped off to Napa State Hospital to be "treated," with the intent to restore him to mental fitness so that he could then be brought back to face criminal trial.

Aside from all of the courtroom theatrics, there should never have been any question about ayres’ competency; ayres’ own actions as well as his medical reports have always indicated that he was deliberately putting on a show of being incompetent.



Before the competency trial:

Before the competency trial, ayres had several evaluations by court appointed doctors, and by his own personal physicians:   

➲ Dr. Robert Telfer, ayres’ neurologist, indicates that he evaluated ayres a few months after the criminal molestation trial. Telfer put ayres on Aricept for treatment of the dementia related to Alzheimer’s. He states that ayres “did not take to it” and therefore wasn't taking the medication.

➲ In July, 2010, ayres had an MRI that showed minimal shrinkage of the brain, within normal parameters for ayres’ age.

➲ ayres took two Mini-mental state examination (MMSE) tests. A score of 25-30 is normal, a score of 21-24 is considered to indicate minimal impairment. Scores below 21 can be considered to indicate dementia, (10 – 20 is “Moderate”) These scores generally don’t increase over time in a person suffering deteriorating mental status.  On ayres’ first test, he scored a 25 (NORMAL - no dementia) and on his second test just before the competency trial, he scored a 29 (NORMAL, no dementia). 

➲ An MRI indicated that there was no presence of “white matter” amyloid plaques that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. 


During the Competency Trial:

During the competency trial, Amanda Gregory, Ph.D. a UCSF neuropsychologist, testified for the defense. Gregory claimed that ayres is without doubt, incompetent. Under cross examination by the prosecution, she admitted that most of her tests were subjective and that she did not use available objective tests with stringent criteria,  from which other evaluators would be able to draw the same conclusions. 

According to reports, Gregory was paid $20,000 for her testimony. 

On the other hand, Dr. Paul Good stated that ayres’ was definitely competent, and left no room for argument otherwise. 

Defense attorney McDougal poked, cajoled and harangued Good, questioning Good on segments of the testing, and was trying to get Good to say that some level of incompetence was shown, and that ayres couldn't answer simple story questions. 

➲ Good told the jury that that the story he used in the test was very complex and abstract, and that it is THE most challenging test sample. He said that initially ayres refused to answer questions, and that if those non-answers were scored, he wouldn’t have passed, but Good says that because he knew that ayres is intelligent, he needed to have a challenging enough test to get him to cooperate, and when he actually got ayres to participate, ayres scored absolutely fine on the test. There seems to have been an implication here that the defense doctors may not have been persistent and patient enough to overcome ayres' stubborn refusals, and simply accepted non-response as a failure. 

➲ McDougall kept hammering at Good about ayres’ off-topic rambling during the criminal trial.  Good was adamant that these instances were NOT off-topic rambling. He says that ayres clearly wants for his attorneys to understand his points, and ayres is trying to keep these points central to the discussion. Good says that ayres wants everyone to know that he was trained to “examine” young boys and that he does not want to plead guilty because he does not think he is guilty.  When his attorneys stray from that topic, ayres is bringing the point to the center of attention again.
In spite of the hard evidence showing that ayres is competent, much of the jury was swayed by the subjective (and in one case, recanted, based on questioning by the prosecution) testimony of ayres’ highly paid witnesses, and the jury was hung, and it ended in mistrial.


After the Competency Trial:

After the competency trial, the prosecution was deciding what to do next. Options were either to re-try the competency phase, or concede that ayres was incompetent. Before the DA was slated to announce their decision, some families and friends of the victims hired a private investigator to follow the child molester.  

According to the video and report from the investigator, ayres was clearly behaving in a very competent fashion. In fact, he was seen dining in San Francisco for lunch with his wife Solveig, and doctors Larry Lurie, MD and Robert Kimmich, MD, both of whom are San Francisco shrinks. 

According to Solveig, these are “very, very, good friends” of ayres'. 

➲ Among other things,  Larry Lurie writes professional papers on the symptoms and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. According to the private investigator, the foursome had a good laugh over comments that it’s advantageous to talk about Alzheimer’s disease in front of lawyers. 

The DA and court ignored the private investigator reports, and conceded that ayres was not competent, and sent him off to Napa State Hospital to be “treated” in hope that competency could be restored so that criminal retrial might proceed. 

After ayres was locked up in Napa State Hospital for six months (the MINIMUM required), McDougall demanded that his client be set free. 

McDougall’s motion was declined. 

During the hearing, the results of the 90 day medical report were discussed. According to the prosecution, the report does not indicate any diagnosis, as ayres has not been cooperative with the medical staff and he indicates that he’s not cooperating at the instruction of his attorney, Jonathan McDougall.

The report says that ayres 
➲ was not being cooperative
➲ he was not taking medication
➲ he was not sleeping because he refuses to use his CPAP machine (usually used for sleep apnea patients), 
➲ he was refusing to participate in group sessions
➲ he was not participating in restoration planning.  

The report DOESN'T say anything about whether or not he can be restored to competency, because the doctors need to be able to evaluate him, but he’s not cooperating. 

The prosecutor says that there seems to be some indication that ayres could be "returned" to competency.

Prosecutor McKowan  stating the following about what the report indicates: 
The doctors report that ayres was INTENTIONALLY not cooperating:
1) Because his lawyer told him not to.
2) The doctors specifically stated in the report that at one point Solveig tells her husband, to “Just go ahead and give it a try” to do what the doctors request and see if it works. ayres’ reply was “Why, so I can go to prison?” 

The prosecutor states that ayres has a “pointed intention NOT to be restored to competency.”

It should have been painfully obvious to the DA and to the court that ayres has all along been actively deceiving the court, and that competency has never been an issue. 

In an article titled "DA: Committed doctor trying to avoid molestation trial" [pdf] by Michelle Durand of the San Mateo Daily Journal, Durand says that McKowan told the paper:

The former child psychiatrist who escaped a retrial on multiple molestation charges by being hospitalized as mentally incompetent is purposely not taking his medication because he knows it could help bring him back to a level of awareness necessary to face a jury.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

william ayres To Remain at Napa For Now

[Original Post: 05/03/2012 3:07PM PST: DS]
Solveig Ayres, Barbara Ayres
On Thursday, May 3, 2012, there was a hearing for Criminal Case SC064366 relating to the incarceration status of william hamilton ayres who is currently in custody at Napa State Hospital after using an incompetency defense to avoid re-trial for his molestation of many young boys while he was alleging to provide them with psychiatric care. In such cases, where the perpetrator is dangerous, California law requires that the offender be held in a locked mental health facility for a minimum of six months. ayres has now been locked up at Napa State Hospital for six months, give or take a few days.

Background:


Jonathan McDougall, ayres’ Scumbag Attorney, says that ayres is struggling with life at Napa, and the minimum incarceration period has now passed, and therefore Scumbag requested today's hearing to establish OUTPATIENT "treatment" for ayres' alleged dementia.

Dementia has not been clearly established, as the court appointed evaluation doctors found him to be competent to defend himself,  based on rigorous testing, and MRI results that did not show markers typical of Alzheimer's. Further, ayres has been videotaped, clearly competent, and having lunch with "very good friend" and psychiatrist, Lawrence Lurie, MD who has published papers on Alzheimer's and its symptoms. The paid doctors who testified at the competency trial in ayres' defense apparently used less rigorous, more subjective "testing." The jury in the competency trial could not ultimately decide between the unbiased, court appointed doctors and the biased defense doctors, and the jury ended deadlocked. On August 22, 2011, the DA gave up the fight, and stipulated that ayres was not competent to defend himself, in spite of the court appointed doctor's conclusions and the videotaped evidence of ayres' competent behavior. ayres managed to manipulate the court and the DA for a bit longer, and stayed out of Napa State until October 25, 2011.

Last week (April 25, 2012) Solveig Ayres, the child molester's vapid, supporting wife, was in probate court to appoint her daughter, Barbara Ayres of Sacramento, to be the conservator for medical decisions for ayres, so that they'd have all their ducks in a row for today's hearing. The Judge told them that there was no urgency, and they could wait until after today's hearing finishes.

Today's hearing was originally scheduled to take place on April 27th, 2012, but was held over largely due to  ayres' attorney Scumbag McDougall's very late filing of appropriate paperwork, and none of the witnesses for the defense or prosecution were present in court. On April 27th, Scumbag did request that the medical reports be sealed until today's hearing. It was reported to the press that included in the documents provided by Scumbag were letters from Robert Ayres and Barbara Ayres, the pig-shit son and daughter of ayres, talking about how hard things are for their child molester daddy.

Today:

molester william hamilton ayres’ scumbag attorney’s request to release him into the population -- so that he can get better care by not being under continual watch because he’s so demented that he needs outpatient care, but with medical conservatorship -- was heard:


In court today were quite a few people.

Solveig and Barbara Ayres were present, and there were about three other people with them, I believe that it’s possible that one or more of them were doctors who were hired by the defense. Also present were at least two doctors from Napa State hospital. There were at least 4 people observing for the victims.

At 9:55 william hamilton ayres, the child molester, was brought into the courtroom. He was walking in using a walker. No wheelchair this time.  The molester was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with a chain around his waist, and a large padlock at the small of his back.  There were handcuffs attached to the chain on both of his sides, but he was not cuffed to them at the time.  He was looking thin in his arms, but still somewhat bulky in body. His beard was not unkempt as was reported in the fishwrappers last week, and again this afternoon. It may have been trimmed somewhat shorter this week. Honestly I don’t remember his beard seeming unkempt last week, and it DEFINITELY was very neatly brushed today. I think this is more than just a bit of bias on the part of the press. They seem to be buying into the whole "demented" story, and are seeing and incorrectly reporting stereotypes that are not present. 

When ayres sat down in his chair, one of the sheriffs came over and locked him in place.


Judge Grandsaert set the tone for today’s hearing: “I have now read the papers for each side, and…  I have to say, Mr. McDougall, I’m just not sure…  what the purpose of the hearing is.”

Defense Testimony:

I think McDougall was more than a little unprepared for this kind of opening statement.

He spent a good deal of time narrating past history, and talked about the 90 day report from Napa, and hearing, followed another report 6 months from the 90 day report.  He went into a complicated and convoluted description of the purpose of all of these hearings and related statutes.  He complained that Napa was late in providing the 90 day report, and that the follow-on report should not be delayed even more because of the lateness of the 90 day report. McDougall says that there is a conflict between the 180 day MINIMUM and the fact that it’s really at least 9 months, since there is a 90 day report and then another report six months after that.  (I’m not sure what MINIMUM means to McDougall. Perhaps he’s confused.)

McDougall spent some time talking about two cases revolving around the constitutionality of holding a demented person in lockup indefinitely if there is no likelihood of return to competency.  McDougall talked at convoluted length about 1603 and 1370 (AIF) penal codes.  The statutes seem to have some built in conflict about when a person becomes available for outpatient treatment, and whether the purpose is to return a person to competency or not, at least if you try to understand it as McDougall attempts to explain it...  He wanted to reset the second report to 30 days from today, rather than in late July / early August as scheduled. 

McDougall states: “There is no argument that he has dementia” and “I don’t think there’s an argument that he can be returned to competency

McDougall says that the 90 day report doesn’t indicate that he could be returned to competency, but he says that it DID indicate that ayres "needs to be more cooperative" (McDougall is doing some VERY creative paraphrasing here, as you'll see in a moment...) and that he needs another neuropsych report.  

McDougall bottom lines: Follow 1603 procedure, and to adjust the report date to meet the 9 months minimum. 


Prosecution Testimony:

The prosecution argued that the late 90 day report date isn’t overly relevant, and she also said that she thinks that McDougall is confused about what 1603 and 1370 mean. She states that 1370 means that outpatient treatment is intended to be used IF RETURN TO COMPETENCY IS EXPECTED

She states that at 90 days, if the DIRECTOR of the facility reports that the person can’t be restored to competency, THEN he can be returned to court, and conservatorship can be pursued. If the 90 day report does NOT say that he can’t be restored to competency, then he has the right to reports at 6 month intervals after the 90 day report.  Each six month report follows the same pattern.  Her explanation was very clear, and logical, especially when stood up against McDougall’s jumble of confused posturing. 

Essentially what I take from McKowan’s argument is that ayres will have a report every 6 months until he is either determined to be competent , or that competency is not possible, at which point ayres will probably be released, either to go to trial if he is competent , and the DA wants to persue charges, OR to be set free and placed under medical conservatorship, as a person with dementia. 

My take is that he will remain locked up at Napa only for as long as it takes for them to adequately evaluate him, or to work on curing him, if they determine that he can be restored to competency. 

McKowan argues that McDougall can’t just haul in doctors from Napa, or his own paid doctors, because the statue only asks for a report from the director of the facility, and nothing else is relevant. FURTHER: She implies that the constitutionality only comes into question if the person is reported to be NOT RESTORABLE TO COMPETENCY.

McKowan states that this is not what the 90 day report indicates! 

The report says that he was not being cooperative, he was not taking medication, he was not sleeping because he refuses to use his CPAP machine (usually used for sleep apnea patients), he was refusing to participate in group sessions, he was not participating in restoration planning.  The report DOESN’T say anything about whether or not he can be restored to competency, because the doctors need to be able to evaluate him, but he’s not cooperating. 

McKowan said that she talked to (the doctor appointed by the director (?) to write the report), and he said that there seems to be some indication that ayres could be returned to competency. 

McKowan says: I don’t believe that the court has anything that we can act on today.”

McKowan says there is no violation of due process and puts the blame for any delay squarely on ayres’ shoulders with his “failure to cooperate” and his “pointed intention NOT to be restored to competency.” “By his own actions, he missed his opportunity.”


Back to the Defense:

Scumbag McDougall was shaking his head throughout the prosecutor’s presentation, and was clearly upset with what McKowan had said about the blame being laid on ayres’ own shoulders.  

He said that it was OUTRAGEOUS to suggest that someone with dementia was purposely trying to prevent restoration to competency!

I happen to agree with McDougall here… I don’t think that someone with dementia would purposely try to prevent restoration to competency unless they were actually competent, and were trying to prevent doctors from declaring him “restored” if he was going to face prison for child molestation. (Wait for it, because it's coming.....)

McDougall states that the court has information that “shows” that ayres is not a danger to society. 

I have no idea what form this proof could take. Perhaps magical faeries have managed to read ayres mind, and determined that somehow his sexual arousal triggers have changed, and now only vapid old trolls are attractive to him, and suddenly, after probably 60 years or so, he’s no longer turned on by little boys --  McDougall needs to share whatever’s in his crack pipe… ‘cause that’s some damn fine shit.

Back to Prosecution:

McKowan  then countered by stating the following about what the report indicates: 
The doctors report that ayres was INTENTIONALLY not cooperating:
1) Because his lawyer told him not to.
2) The doctors specifically stated in the report that at one point Solveig tells her husband, to “Just go ahead and give it a try” to do what the doctors request and see if it works. Ayres’ reply was “Why, so I can go to prison?”  (And there you have it folks....)

McKowan says that court should be able to infer from the report that ayres was expecting to go, spend his six months, and then be released. 

McKowan indicated that the victims should be given the opportunity to make a statement at the time that ayres is expected to be released from Napa.

Aftermath:

McDougall tried to argue more that he should still be released. Discussion went back and forth. Everyone tried to nail down a date for the next hearing.

The judge said that he’s reviewed the statues, and that provisions of 1603 have not been met. He adjusted the date to July 25, 2012 so that it falls 9 months after lockup. He said that the report should address 1603 and have some conclusion about whether or not restoration of competency can be done, and to the extent that it can be done at Napa State Hospital. He said that if the director’s report can be done early, it should be done early. 

They set the next hearing date for July 25, 2012 at 8:45am so that they can look at the report, and determine next steps. 

Finally, McDougall complained that after last week’s hearing, the judge ordered ayres to be transported back to Napa, but that he wasn’t… instead he was left in county lockup for the week!  

McDougall complained that the sheriffs had simply ignored the judge’s order. McDougall whined that it’s contributed to ayres’ further decay. McDougall told the court to order ayres returned TODAY to Napa State Hospital.

The judge smacked McDougall back, saying that he had reviewed his record from the hearing last week, and that there was actually no order, therefore no violation.  The judge then ordered that ayres be transported back to Napa at the earliest possible convenience of the sheriff’s office. 

NONE of the witnesses present were called to testify, nor were the pleading letters of ayres' dumb shit children considered, as their testimony was irrelevant. 

The San Mateo County Times has their news report up. <pdf> There’s not much meat there though. 

An article in the San Mateo Daily Journal <pdf> states in no uncertain terms that william hamilton ayres ""who is 80 and has Alzheimer’s-related dementia, is trying to avoid a second trial by refusing his medication and is also very uncooperative with the staff at Napa State Hospital where he was sent last year for treatment"



ayres Not Released Yet

ayres to remain in Napa for now. Further report from Napa due on or before July 25, 2012, at which time a hearing will be scheduled.

ayres has been refusing treatment, including Meds, C-Pap, not participating in groups, apparently at the advice of his attorney.

Also according to the prosecutor, ayres' wife told him to try what the doctors were recommending, and ayres said: "Why, so I can go to prison?"

Prosecution put on a good strong showing today. Jonathan McDougall (ayres' attorney) really seemed to bumble today. There were lots of witnesses present. None testified.

Skanky Solveig and Barbara were there along with an odd menagerie of about three other people. One of them may have been weirdly-poor-hat-selection-guy from the criminal trial.

More to follow.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

ayres Criminal Hearing 5/3/2012

Reminder:
There is a criminal case hearing TODAY
May 3rd, 2012 at 10 AM
Case number SC064366


Hearing: Defense request to release ayres from Napa: May 3, 2012 10AM PST
Hall of Justice: 400 County Center, Redwood City
The hearing scheduled for April 27, 2012 was held over until May 3, 2012:
ayres' attorney has said that ayres is not doing well in Napa, and will argue that william hamilton ayres is so demented that he needs to be NOT tried for for molesting many young boys while alleging that he was practicing child psychiatry, AND he needs to be released from Napa because he's SO demented that he needs to have non-locked-up, outpatient treatment.

Sounds like a logical argument right?

If you're planning to attend the hearing: SHOW UP EARLY. The Court proceedings have been known to start early in order to avoid making the proceedings public.