Do you want to be in a Manican?
Rodney Hinton Juniors accused of killing Hemmelin County Sheriff Deputy Larry Henderson Maysecon and he this is the guy who took his car, drove around looking for a deputy to run over, and runs over a Deputy Henderson. And all Henderson was doing is working traffic until operating a light manually. At UC's graduation ceremony a few hours earlier, Hinton and his family got to look at body camera video was eighteen year old son Ryan being fatally shot by Cincinnati police.
The video we've subsequently seen and said that kid had it coming running with a gun in his hand, dropping it, picking back up, not complying with law enforcement, and Rodney Hinton to showed the level of a sociopath that he and maybe his son was decided that his son was completely innocent and we're going to have a shooting space as such.
By the way, the.
Hinton family is still trying to file lawsuits and make this a case against CPD and officers and saying that justice was not served in the shooting of the sun even though this kid is running around with a gun, dealing cars and committing violent crimes with impunity. That's not the kind of people we need on the street. And you know that that pervasive attitude that permits in the
community is not trickled up to the mayor's office. But nonetheless, yesterday a court appointed forensic psychologists found Rodney Hinton, Junior, the dad, suffering from serious mental illness, making him ineligible for the death pedal. The question is is he going to avoid punishment. We're going with the not guilty by
reason of an insanity play. And this is just a preliminary by the way, this is the court appointed psychiatrist who was doing this, and there's a long way to go and we'll find out if and when Rodney Hinton will face the death penalty. Jason Philibaum, attorney, a law, former prosecutor and Butler County defense attorney, now joins the show.
Jason, how you been, good morning? Doing well? Thank you?
All right, We've had this discussion before about NGRI. But so the diagnosis for Hinton is bipolar disorder psychosis. A psychologist concluded that mental illnesses impacted and paired him to his ability to exercise rational judgment the time of his offense. His attorney, a very good attorney in Clyde Bennett argues that hit and didn't understand the wrongfulness of his conduct. But I look at this and go, I know prosecutors are going to look at a second opinion.
This is very early in the game.
But you know, when you drive around and you stalk your prey, that tells me that you are of right mind, you know exactly what you're doing. This is a really difficult approach that they're using here, isn't it.
Yes, I think there's two things to consider. The first thing is to consider or whether or not he should be not guilty because of insanity, and that's a very specific definition of whether he knew essentially the wrongfulness of his action. The second question, which is what they were kind of discussing yesterday, is whether he should be executed
because of his mental health disorder. I mean, the one thing I always tell jury's and I've always told people, is people that commit crimes aren't mentally normal.
I mean that's you know, everyone.
That essentially commits a violent crime like that has some issue going on. The question is is the issue the mental health so severe that it is prohibited, you know, to have the state use the death penalty, and I think that's what they're looking at right now. And Clyde, he does do a good job in this case. He's he's essentially attacking it from two different angles. He's saying, my client's not guilty because he's insane, and if you find him.
To be sane, then you can't put him.
To death because his mental health is so severe that that's not applicable to him, right the law.
Jason Philibama believe if correct, my Brian, you're the attorney.
I'm not, But.
Are there there are four specific mental illnesses that make defendants death penalty and eligible. And so how does the law define significantly impaired to exercise rational judgment, which is what's going on here, and the evidentiary standard prosecutors have to the burden they have to overcome to still pursue the death penalty.
Yeah, the answer to that is probably a good law school class. But the in shorts, I think it was House Bill one thirty six essentially prohibits the death penalty for those that were diagnosed with schizophrenia, I think schizophrenic disorder, bipolar disorder, and delusional disorder.
But again it has to be something that's significant.
You know, anyone that's abused drugs usually will have some type of diagnosis with bipolar But if it's not significant enough to impair and essentially effect their everyday life to the extent that you know, that's that's something I think would be a factual decision that has to be determined.
Yeah, got it.
And so what you're going to what you're going to have from a preliminary standpoint is one psychologist basically said, yes, it's severe enough that he shouldn't be facing the death penalty, at least that's what we kind of got from the court yesterday. And then the state's going to get a second opinion, which happens all the time, this is not abnormal.
And if that doctors says it's not, then.
I think you're going to say that the judge is going to say, let the jury decide that, and I'll explain that.
In a minute.
But okay, if the second opinion comes back and says no, it's severe, then all of a sudden, you've got two opinions, one from the defense one from the state, and they both say it's severe. Then you're going to have the situation where the state may take the backbone of the office table themselves.
Yeah, okay, And there's a high bars there should be for an insanity defense because mental illness alone that doesn't mean legal insanity.
There's a distinction.
There's what you're saying, and so many people to buy Paul, disorder and psychosis can distinguish right from wrong. I don't know if I'm the prosecutor, I look at this going, well, he knows how to the rational behavior would be. He gets in a vehicle, he operates a motor vehicle, presumably abides by most of the traffic laws. Anyway, on that date, he's looking for a target. He's out there basically stalking, looking for law enforcement officer to kill, maybe even a
white law enforcement officer. The statements and what statements he made before during because I guess when they were showing him the video, he just kind of stormed out. The family tried to calm him down. He was just angry. But a lot of people commit crimes when they're angry. Look at the shootings at Fountain Square, that's probably about an anger street beef. Stuff like that doesn't mean a
mental mental illness or incompetency, you know. And at the time he took off, he struck him and they caught him later. And I think all that adds in the fact that you know, he made some sound decisions and was of the right mind that led up to the death of Ederson. I don't know how a jury wouldn't look at that.
And those are exactly the points the prosecutor is going to argue if insanity is allowed to pursue, and man, he has to have a psychologist that also supports the insanity defense. And the one interesting thing about that is we can't see what these reports say. The judge specifically scolded or warned or whatever both parties that they do not want this report and leaked, so we don't know what's in the report.
We don't know exactly what was said.
We can surmise a little bit from the arguments, but at the end of the day, the prosecutor is going to argue, exactly what you just did. This was a calculated This was a planned This was premeditated at least by an hour or two, if not.
You know, a few minutes. It doesn't have to be like a year long meditation.
It's he planned it, even if it was in a short plan. So I think all of those arguments are what the state's going to argue that he is he is guilty for what he did and insanity is and apply.
Now if he's found guilty, then in a death penalty phase.
You then have a sentencing phase. It's this completely separate hearing. So jury goes back and just determines is he guilty or not. And if they find him guilty, then the defense and the state get together again and they present more evidence. And at this point, the state has a burden to prove that the death pence is applicable in this case. And that's where you get a lot of mitigation from the defense. You know, oh he's a great guy, or oh he has these mental illness or get a
bad light whatever. And that's where these reports really will come into play, because if if they can convince a jury that he has this serious illness that prohibits the death penalty, then the jury won't be able to give the death penalty. And what's interesting is there's there's three off ramps for Clyde's clients. The first is if both reports come back, maybe the state takes it off or the judge says, I'm not.
Going to allow it.
What's more likely is you're going to have competing experts, and so the jury judge is going to let the jury decide, and then the jury is gonna, you know, essentially make their decision. If they find the death penalty, then the third off ramp will be in a pellet court who will look at all the evidence and determine and that's where we might see this development the appellate court. So there's a lot of sort of moving parts, but it really will come down to what this next expert says.
Gotcha.
He is a defense attorney. Jason philobaum our legal expert on The Sloan Show talking about Rodney Hitton Junior. I know we got the Terry Thigi stuff. We're talking about that today as well, but this is an important story because he's accused of killing Deputy Larry Henderson. I remember that after his son was out with a gun and got shot by Cincinnati police officers, I showed them the video of the shoot was ruled a deemed a good shooting on the part of the police officers because the
son was running around with a gun stolen car. Eighteen year old Ryan Hinton was legally shot by Cincinnati Police. He loses his mind apparently and goes and kills for no reason, Deputy Larry Henderson as quote unquote revenge, And now they're trying to play the well, he had bipolar disorder and psychosis, and safe to say, most people have some mental illness in their life. I mean, everyone thinks they're normal. The rest of the world is afft up,
but that's not the case. We're all flawed in some way, shape or form. I think what he did is beyond the effect of psychostists or bipolar disorder. I mean, clearly he knew what he was doing when he murdered Larry Henderson, and now is just trying to evade his due punishment in this case. When a courter pointed forensic psychologists to testify that he's got these illnesses, Jason, Okay, So he testifies, prosecutors will get a second opinion and make contradute the first.
How does the judge sort this all out?
Well, it's difficult, but at the end of the days, there's some judges that will, you know, try to impose their own sort of decision on the case.
And we've talked about that. We kind of, you know, want a judge that's going to more interpret the law and not necessarily make the law.
So some judges may look at this and say, I'm taking the death penalty off the table. I have enough to do it because this expert says, So I think what you're going to see more judges do is take a look at it, and if it's a factual issue, I'm going to let the jury decide it, because that's essentially what our society is based on, is let the jury decide, you know, the factual issues.
Now, if it's clear.
Cut, then I think the judge has a duty then to take the death penalty off the table. So if every expert says this is so severe that the death penalty shouldn't apply, then I.
Think the judge has a duty to do it. But if you have competing experts.
One says he is one says he's got issues, but not to the point that the death penalty shouldn't be excluded, then I think most judges are going to say I'm going to let the jury decide this. That way, you know, there's a fair trial and jury decides, and then they're selling a pellet court that's going to look at it again and determine whether or not, you know, the judge made the right decision, whether the jury made the right decision, and so on. So I think the best thing to
do is let it go through the process. But when a judge sort of takes one side and rips away their you're their case, I think that's what a lot of a lot of people don't like to see.
Yeah, and Jason Philibon, the idea here is that we know he's guilty. You got you've got in place to the scene, you've got the smoking guy, and you've got the murder, you've got the deliberation, you got the intent, you got all that stuff. There's no question about it. He's the guy, and he did what he did what Clyde Bennett is trying to do in to send some wiggle room to save this guy's life.
That's all this is.
Right, Yes, And you know what's interesting is we all get to the issue of the death penalty, like you know what happened with Charlie Kirk and his assassination. At some point, you know, is life in prison worse than the death penalty? But right now, that's not a decision the jury makes. That's not a decision that the judge should make or the attorney should make. That's the decision of society makes. So they look at this case individually. Does the death penalty apply? It does based on the
alleged facts. And then the second question is should the defendant get the death penalty? And all the Ohio law did was really sort of podify what the Supreme Court has already said. You can't execute the mentally ill, you can't execute minors, you can't execute you know, low IQ individuals. They and then so Ohio took it one step further and said the mentally ill are.
These four categories, and we're not going to let you do that. It still comes down to a factual decision, though, about whether or not this individual meets those criteria, and I think that's what a.
Jury should decide in this case.
With that said, if a second opinion comes back and as clear as day that this guy's got some problems, then it's just a matter of you know, life in prison versus not And I think that's a guilty versus not guilty.
And like you said, that's not really in question. The question is what happens when the jury finds him guilty.
In this case, does intent override mental illness? In that the prosecutors claimed to hit and intentionally drove in to Henderson, I think that's clear that he did. But does that evidence of intentional, purposeful, willful conduct undermine the mouth of lillness claim.
It does to some extent, But you have to think about almost every crime is intent. And the guy that's hopped up on drugs and breaks into a house and then you know, gets into a fight with a homeowner.
And kills them, that was all intentional.
But in this case, like you emphasize, which is what the prostitutes and emphasized, there was an intent to kill long before you broke into a house and stumbled across the homeowner.
You know, that was sort of a secondary intent.
This guy was, you know, allisedly driving down the street looking for an officer to exact his revenge. And I think that's what's going to like you said, probably err on the side of Hey, this person was sane enough to coordinate a plan of attack to kill this individual standing on the side of the road, And that's going to go against whether or not this psychosis is so bad that it should take a death penalty off the table.
Now in the hitting case. How common is it for fase, I believe aggravated murder is what the charge is. To successfully use mental illness as a defense here, it's pretty rare that they succeed.
Well, it's rare in the guilt phase, but it's actually not that. I mean, it's more common in the you know, I've had a death penalty cases where I remember one of my first death penalty cases, the guy stabbed the guy twenty three times and we argue to the jury that, you know, he should face the death penalty because it was a burglary and a murder, and the jury came back and found life.
And the reason was is, you know, the.
Guy had a bad childhood, he had some mental health issues, he was depressed, he was anxious, and they felt that was enough to you know, take off the death penalty and just do life in prison. And I think because it has to be a unanimous decision. So what happens is there's twelve jurors and ten are saying death and
two are saying no this. You know, there there's two reasons why he should maybe not get death, and then after two days of deliberation, the jury comes back with life because they're thinking, hey, life is worse than death. I mean, I if I have to spend the rest of my life in prison, that's awful. I think that's why defense attorneys will argue, and sometimes very successfully, that mental health is a reason why you should put this person in prison for life instead of death.
All right, Jason Philibum. Finally, December first, I believe, is the next hearing. It's insignificant one, and the determination there is going to be whether a judge finds hitting death penalty and eligible or eligible If indeed that happens December first, and I'm sure we'll talk around then. Can prosecutors appeal that decision for the trial and what's going to happen December first and quickly thereafter.
That's a good question.
And you know, typically a prosecutor cannot appeal that decision prior to the trial, so the prosecutors have very limited appellate rights.
It's usually after the fact, and if someone has.
Found not guilty, then you know they can have an appeal that argues law, but it's not going to change the verdict. So in this particular case, I think they're probably going to be stuck with whatever the judge decides. I mean, they could appeal after the fact, but it's not going to change this case. So it's really going to come down to what December happens, is what their
expert says. If they're expert, and I would expect their expert comes back and just has a different opinions, then I would expect the judge to say, let us go to trial and decide. But again, if it's a situation where you know it's clear that he has such a mental health issue that qualifies under this House bill, then and you may see the prosecutor withdraw it to himself.
All right.
He is James el Jason PHILIBAUMA attorney at law, former or a prosecutor now in private practice, explaining what the path forward is. Here Rodney Hinton Junior, in his insanity play, a court ordered psychologist concluded he's got mental health illness. It's significantly a comparisability to exercise rational judgment when he decided to murder and stalk and kill Larry Henderson, which I think if I were in a jury, I disagree
with that, But we'll find out with the defense. The I guess the prosecutors move now and then that hearing on December first, and all the whole sorts out, but he is Jason Philipon. Thanks again for the sharp legal insight as always, Buddy, appreciate you.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
All Right, we move on next up on the Scottslan Show on seven hundred W. Of course we start with the news updates about four or five minutes away, and later on we'll get to Dan Hort Thursday Night football.
Something a little lighter for us today, Cincinnati Pittsburgh and all closer than that the state of Terry Thiji as we await the verdict on her career future, whether and you know, again, I don't think it matters if it's Thiji or it's and Chief anybody else for that matter, in a long list of people been around and again it is the piper that's calling the tune. And the
piper would be after Pure Vault manager shere Long. I don't know, maybe Iris rawling a bunch of others, but Fiji is like kind of like when Zach Taylor fired lou Ana Rumo last season, and that is it really lou Anaruma because he took his show to Indianapolis and they're five and one.
So is it really the.
The person who's subject to the rule or the rulemakers themselves?
You decide seven hundred wiltw