The Akron Legal News

Man who proved he was insane while making bomb threats wins appeal

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: November 7, 2014

A three-judge panel in the 4th District Court of Appeals recently reversed a man’s conviction for telecommunications harassment after finding that he properly proved he was insane when he called in an alleged bomb threat to the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

Defendant Chad Kister appealed his conviction from the Athens County Municipal Court after it rejected his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Kister argued that his psychologist testified that Kister suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, a severe mental disease that prevented him from understanding that his actions were wrong.

He asserted that this testimony was sufficient to establish his not guilty by reason of insanity defense.

The facts of the case state that Kister was charged with telecommunications harassment in two separate cases.

In the first case, the state alleged that he made multiple phone calls to the Athens County Emergency Communications Center in August and September 2012.

Throughout the calls, dispatchers said he screamed, used foul language and then hung up.

Kister pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in that case and the trial court accepted that plea.

In the second case, the state claimed Kister called the Ohio Department of Mental Health on July 30, 2012.

ODMH employees testified that Kister was incoherent, agitated, screaming and using foul language.

They also reported that Kister called ODMH a terrorist organization, a Nazi organization and accused them of “controlling him.”

One employee testified that she believed she heard Kister say he was going to “bomb the place.”

A partial recording of the call did not include the bomb threat, but the woman identified both Kister’s and her own voice on the tape.

The prosecutor testified that the recording was taken from Kister’s website and inferred that he had recorded the conversation and edited out his threats.

Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Jack Moorhead investigated the threat.

He said he spoke to Kister six hours after the phone calls and Kister denied even placing the calls.

The trooper also recalled Kister threatening to lodge complaints against the highway patrol and ODMH.

Kister entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea in that case as well and the trial court held a bench hearing on the matter.

In Kister’s defense, Dr. David Malawista testified that he had been treating Kister and had evaluated him six times in the year prior to trial.

Malawista explained that paranoid schizophrenia affected Kister’s ability to think clearly and rationally and opined that the condition hindered his ability to appreciate the wrongful nature of his phone calls.

He said those with paranoid schizophrenia “see the world quite differently” than others and stated that Kister believes he is constantly being monitored by a wide range of government agencies, including local and national law enforcement agencies.

Based on the charges, Malawista said it appeared as though Kister believed ODMH was also monitoring him and felt threatened by the department.

The doctor told the court he did not believe Kister knew he was acting inappropriately, but instead thought his actions were necessary to “resolve the torture that he was experiencing on a daily basis.”

The trial court accepted Malawista’s opinion. However, it did not adopt the opinion that Kister did not understand his behavior.

Instead, the trial judge held that Kister established that he knew he acted unlawfully because he told Moorhead that he had not placed the calls and he edited the threatening language out of the phone calls.

Therefore, the judge found him guilty and Kister appealed, asserting that his conviction was against the manifest weight of the evidence.

“In essence, Kister does not contend that the state failed to prove the elements of the offense of telecommunications harassment. Rather, Kister argues that he established the elements of a not guilty by reason of insanity defense and should have been found not guilty,” Judge Marie Hoover wrote for the appeals court.

Upon review of the record, the appellate judges agreed with the trial court that Malawista’s testimony was credible.

They disagreed, however, with the lower court’s finding that Kister denying the threat showed that he knew it was legally wrong.

“The issue in this case is whether Kister appreciated the wrongfulness of his actions at the time of the commission of the offense. It is entirely possible that while Kister may have appreciated the wrongfulness of his actions when he spoke to Trooper Moorhead, he may not have had the same appreciation six hours prior when the crime was committed,” Judge Hoover wrote.

The judges held that such a belief was supported by Malawista’s testimony that Kister’s understanding of right and wrong were directly related to “the level of his disturbance at one particular moment.”

They further noted that Malawista testified that he had listened to Moorhead’s testimony and still concluded that Kister did not understand his actions.

Additionally, the judges rejected the lower court’s findings with regard to Kister editing the recorded phone calls.

They found that no evidence supported that notion except for comments from the prosecutor, “which are not evidence.”

“In light of the foregoing, we conclude that Kister established by a preponderance of the evidence that he was insane at the time he made the threat. Thus, Kister’s conviction was against the manifest weight of the evidence,” Judge Hoover continued.

Presiding Judge Peter Abele and Judge Matthew McFarland joined Judge Hoover in reversing Kister’s conviction and remanding the matter for further proceedings.

The case is cited State v. Kister, 2014-Ohio-4596.

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