Court allows retrial for Pa. man left paralyzed by suicide attempt, but competency at issue

Court allows retrial for Pa. man left paraplegic

PITTSBURGH — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the retrial of a central Pennsylvania man who allegedly murdered his wife and then shot himself in the head, leaving him delusional and a paraplegic.

Edward Hummel, however, will most likely be kept in a state mental hospital, because he is not competent to stand trial, said his defense attorney, H. David Rothman.

“He’s been a basket case since he shot himself,” Rothman said. “If he’s found not competent (to stand trial), he can be placed in a facility indefinitely under the state mental health act.”

Prosecutors accuse Hummel of murdering his wife, Debra, just before Thanksgiving in 1991 and then botching his own suicide.

Rothman has represented Hummel, 53, since 1995 and contends the brain damage Hummel suffered from the self-inflicted .45-caliber bullet wound keeps him from remembering what happened. Hummel cannot walk, cannot see clearly and suffers from both long-and short-term memory problems which keep him from recalling some of the events in question and from following along with court testimony, Rothman said.

A psychiatrist testified in the mid-1990s that Hummel also suffered from delusions, including a belief that he had been cut up, put in a box by the Mafia and then reassembled by “the best surgeons in the world from Switzerland.”

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear prosecutors’ appeal Monday means that a June opinion by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stands. In that ruling, a three-judge appeals panel overturned Hummel’s conviction, saying that his public defender was ineffective for agreeing that Hummel was competent to stand trial.

The state attorney general’s office appealed the 3rd Circuit decision to the nation’s highest court on behalf of Clearfield County District Attorney William Shaw Jr. The attorney general’s office did not immediately return a call for comment Monday and Shaw’s secretary said he was out of the office and not taking messages.

Hummel’s trial attorney, former public defender F. Cortez Bell III, is now the district attorney’s first assistant. Bell also did not immediately return a message for comment Monday.

The appeals court found that Bell requested a competency hearing before Hummel’s 1992 murder trial, but withdrew the request after agreeing with prosecutors that Hummel was competent to stand trial — even though Bell hadn’t met with Hummel by that time. Bell also didn’t consult with Hummel’s parents, who were his court-appointed guardians because of his injuries, before reaching the agreement, the appeals court found.

Hummel was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He’s incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution-Laurel Highlands in Somerset County, a minimum security prison with a separate housing unit for older or geriatric male inmates.

A Common Pleas judge vacated Hummel’s sentence in October, but he remains in custody because prosecutors intend to retry him on murder and other charges if he’s found competent, Rothman said.

Rothman said prosecutors have agreed to have Hummel’s mental competency determined at Warren State Hospital, and online court records confirm that.