Anthony Leon Johnson was arrested in 1999 for the rape of a University of Georgia student but he has yet to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.
That is because the 44-year-old former Derby Street resident has been in a state psychiatric hospital the past 15 years, and medical experts continue to tell the court Johnson is mentally incompetent to stand trial.
His cousin, Albert Lee Johnson pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and raping the 20-year-old student and was sentenced to two life prison terms. At his sentencing hearing in 2000, he confessed to assaulting the student with Anthony Johnson.
Athens-Clarke County police said on the night of March 27, 1999 the student became separated from friends while at a downtown bar and decided to walk back to her apartment. She was walking alone across campus, near the fountain in front of the UGA president’s office where she was accosted by two men. During sentencing, Albert Johnson testified he and Anthony Johnson waited for the victim near the Main Library. While holding the student at gunpoint, he said, Anthony Johnson acted as a lookout, staying in the shadows and emerging when the student reached into her purse to pull out money.
The two men then forced the student to walk to Dudley Park off Oconee Street, where Albert Johnson testified he and his cousin took turns raping and sodomizing the student.
Albert Johnson said the student quietly begged for her safety throughout the attack.
At the sentencing hearing, a letter written by the rape victim was read in court.
“I literally wanted to cut my insides out and not be a girl anymore,” the student wrote. “I thought my father wouldn’t be able to love me anymore.”
Due to a plea bargain struck with prosecutors, Albert Johnson will be eligible for parole 20 years from the date of his arrest, or April 16, 2019.
His cousin’s court-appointed defense attorney Edward Tolley, entered a special plea of mental incompetence to stand trial on Anthony Johnson’s behalf.
In the plea, the attorney noted that in prior criminal cases, in 1989 and 1990, Johnson was found both times to be incompetent and the District Attorney’s Office opted to not prosecute him for both cases, which involved the offenses of burglary, theft and giving a false name to police.
In the burglary case, Johnson was said by a prosecutor to have been “following or being used” by two other offenders.
Tolley said Johnson possessed an IQ so low he could never be competent to stand trial on the charges.
“He was in a self-contained mental retardation unit in the Clarke County School System the entire time he was in school,” Tolley told then-Superior Court Judge Steve Jones. “We’re talking about a case where the defendant has a 52 on his IQ. You do not improve on your IQ, I’m sorry.”
District Attorney Ken Mauldin told Jones a letter Johnson wrote to him while Johnson was in jail indicated “he clearly understands what’s going on.”
A civil trial was held in September 2000, in which mental health experts described Johnson as suffering from mild mental retardation and being “easily led, gullible, and not able to take care of himself.”
A forensic psychologist who evaluated Johnson at East Central Regional Hospital in Augusta testified that while Johnson could understand the nature and object of court proceedings against him, he had little comprehension of his role in those proceedings and could do little to assist his attorneys in his defense.
“While Mr. Johnson understood certain basic facts ... he did not have an understanding of the seriousness of the charges,’’ the doctor testified.
Under Georgia law, a defendant is incompetent to stand trial if he cannot understand the object and nature of the proceedings against him and is unable to assist his attorneys in his defense.
A jury decided Johnson was mentally incompetent to be tried for the UGA student’s rape, and he “was not likely to attain competency in the foreseeable future.” Jones then ordered a civil commitment, remanding Johnson into the custody of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities for further evaluation.
In his ruling, Jones said Johnson “is mentally retarded and presents a substantial risk of harm to himself. He is a danger to others, and he is unable to care for his health and safety as to create an imminently life-endangering crisis.”
Johnson was subsequently admitted to Georgia Regional Hospital, a secure state facility in Milledgeville, and additional hearings to determine whether he should remain hospitalized or stand trial have been held periodically ever since.
The first recommitment order to be issued by the judge occurred in the fall of 2005, at which time Jones denied a request that Johnson be allowed to make off-campus excursions.
Following a recommitment hearing in October 2008, the judge ruled Johnson should remain hospitalized because “his condition is not expected to change.” In his ruling, Jones noted “repeated findings by psychiatrists and psychologists as far back as 1985 have found Johnson’s full scale I.Q. to be as low as 45 and as high as 60, both mental retardation. Experts have consistently determined that Johnson, now 37, is not mentally competent to stand trial because he cannot assist counsel, he does not understand the nature and object of the proceedings going on against him, and he does not comprehend his own condition in reference to the legal proceedings.”
A hearing was held in December 2011 to decide whether to grant Johnson’s request to be allowed supervised off-campus community outings. The request was denied by a new judge presiding over the case, H. Patrick Haggard.
The following year, in a February 2012 order, Haggard stated Johnson “continues to meet the criteria for involuntary inpatient commitment” and “is to be maintained in an appropriate in-patient facility and receive proper case and treatment until further notice of this court.”
Another recommitment order was issued by the judge in May 2013.
When a request was made several months later for Johnson to be allowed supervised off-campus outings, the District Attorney’s Office objected on the grounds “it appears that no effort has been made to assist (Johnson) in attaining competency or to evaluate whether, in fact, he has reached the state of competency.”
Between the time the request was made and the last recommitment hearing was held, however, it would appear Johnson made progress, just not to the point where he would be able to stand trial.
In granting the request for off-campus outings, Haggard stated Johnson “has responded positively to treatment.” The judge noted Central State Hospital’s director of forensic services reported Johnson was one of the top performers in a work program, in which he spent four hours, three days a week, untangling wires used in airplane parts. The program had both male and female participants, with whom Johnson “engages in socially appropriate behavior,” the judge noted, and also participated in interpersonal skills groups, including one for expressive art. The judge further noted Johnson was then being housed in the hospital’s least restrictive unit.
“The state did not argue that the community would be endangered by allowing Mr. Johnson to take supervised off-campus outings,” Haggard wrote in his order, which gave permission for Johnson to have a maximum of two supervised outings per month, none lasting more than three hours.
Johnson’s most recent recommittal hearing was held earlier this month, on Oct. 8, with Haggard presiding.
Dr. Christian Hildreth, director of forensic services at Georgia Regional Hospital, testified Johnson’s diagnosis of mild retardation had not changed, that he had limited cognitive abilities and remained “susceptible to the influence of other people.” He also said Johnson has had off-campus outings to such places as Walmart, restaurants and the movies.
Haggard ruled Johnson must remain hospitalized and continue receiving treatment under further notice by the court.
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