Nolan Clay
09/22/2000
A mentally retarded man charged with second-degree murder was spared Thursday from going to jail.
A judge agreed Jerome Vaught, 34, can stay at an Enid facility run by the state Department of Human Services.
Vaught, a longtime Choctaw Living Center resident, is accused of strangling another patient Aug. 30 at the private home for mentally handicapped adults.
Vaught has been described as having the mental capacity of a 1- or 2-year-old. Prosecutors acknowledge he may be mentally incompetent to ever face trial.
Vaught is charged in Oklahoma County District Court. He made his first court appearance Thursday.
His defense attorney, John Coyle, said he would ask that the charge be dismissed.
"It is just clear in America that you can't charge a 2-year-old with the crime of murder in the second degree. You just can't do it," the attorney said. "Someone who has a mental capacity of a 2-year-old child cannot be criminally liable for any acts that person commits. That's the law. This charge... was irresponsibly filed."
Vaught was moved to the Northern Oklahoma Resource Center in Enid after the death. Prosecutors agreed he could stay there as long as District Judge Tammy Bass-Jones ordered that he be supervised by center employees "physically capable of maintaining appropriate control" over him.
The judge signed the order.
Killed was Joe L. "J.J." McCormick Jr., who lived at the Choctaw Living Center for about a year. McCormick, 26, was strangled with a belt.
An employee found Vaught kneeling over McCormick's lifeless body holding a belt wrapped around the victim's neck, police said.
Vaught does not speak but made noises and clapped his hands from time to time Thursday while waiting for a decision. His sister, Jada Young, held his hand.
The second-degree murder charge said Vaught acted "in a manner imminently dangerous to another person." Punishment for a conviction is up to life in prison.
Health officials closed the Choctaw Living Center after the death. Inspectors reported that staff employees had goaded Vaught into confrontations with the victim.
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