Accused Santa Fe HS shooter may be committed long-term to mental health fac

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Nearly three years after the Santa Fe High School massacre that left 10 dead, the young man charged with capital murder in the shootings is no closer to standing trial and may end up committed long-term to a mental health facility.

The accused gunman, 19-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, was ordered by a state district court in Galveston in February to remain committed for at least 12 months to the maximum-security North Texas State Hospital in Vernon, where he has been in custody since November 2019. The order was signed by Judge John Ellisor after Pagourtzis received a minimum of 60 consecutive days of inpatient mental health services and was still found incompetent to stand trial.

The latest delay to the capital murder trial highlights a quirk of state law that allows defendants who are declared incompetent to remain confined to mental health facilities for up to the maximum sentence for the offense. Evaluations of competency to stand trial speak to a suspect’s state of mind at the time that a trial would begin.

Pagourtzis is charged with capital murder and faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years if convicted. Nick Poehl, one of Pagourtzis’ defense attorneys, raised the possibility that the charges could eventually be “set aside” or dismissed if he continually remains unfit to stand trial at future civil commitment hearings.

“From my standpoint, we’re just kind of in a bit of limbo,” Poehl said. “We’ve got to get him further along to reach competency. They've gone through various combinations of (medication) and it's kind of a trial and error approach.”

Jack Roady, the Galveston County district attorney and lead prosecutor on the case, played down the notion that charges might be dismissed, maintaining that the state intends to hold a trial no matter how long it takes for Pagourtzis’ mental state to be restored.

“Our position is, in the law, if it takes up to the maximum sentence for him to be committed for purposes of competency restoration, then that may end up being (what happens),” Roady said. “But the case is not going to go away.”

Pagourtzis is charged in the shooting rampage that killed 10 and wounded 13 in May 2018. A junior at the high school at the time, Pagourtzis admitted to being the mass shooter after his arrest, according to court documents.

Witnesses said Pagourtzis entered the school with a long dark trench coat that he frequently wore, concealing what police later identified as his father's sawed-off Remington shotgun and a .38 pistol. He planted explosives that did not detonate and selected his targets so as to spare students he liked, he later told police.

His parents are also defendants in a civil lawsuit alleging they knew their son was exhibiting extreme behavior but failed to prevent him from accessing their firearms, which authorities say were used in the shooting. The parents maintain they were not negligent and that they did as much as they could for their son.

Pagourtzis was originally evaluated independently by three psychiatric experts in October 2019, with one each selected by the defense, prosecution, and Ellisor, the judge presiding over the case. All three agreed that he was not fit to stand trial.

Poehl has spoken to Pagourtzis periodically during his stay at the hospital in Vernon, but declined to characterize the nature of those conversations. He said that while the hospital is a high-security facility, Pagourtzis is not in solitary confinement and undergoes extensive treatment as part of a “multi-track therapeutic approach.”

“He can move around, he does interact with other patients, he participates in therapy and classes that are designed to restore him to competency,” Poehl said.

Pagourtzis’ parents have visited him occasionally, though less frequently during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roady acknowledged that the years-long delay to get a trial has been difficult for the victims’ families, but that his hands are tied by the law.

“We're all extremely frustrated, and certainly our victims and their families are and we're anxious and ready to get this case tried,” he said.