KY- Court: Sex offender ruled incompetent to stand trial

3-18-2009 Kentucky:

A homeless Maysville man has been ruled incompetent to stand trial on charges he failed to register as a sex offender, a class D felony.

According to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gary Adkins, Harold M. "Beanie" Atherton, 42, underwent a psychiatric evaluation to determine if he was competent to stand trial. Adkins said Atherton was evaluated at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Complex as an inpatient and a competency hearing was held March 2. Adkins said on March 3, Circuit Court Judge Stockton B. Wood issued an order ruling Atherton was not competent to stand trial.

The 13-page competency evaluation was conducted by Dr. Steven Simons and has been sealed by the court, Adkins said.

Atherton was convicted in Mason District Court in 2007 of third-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor charge. He served his sentence in the Mason County Detention Center and was released in March 2008. Under state law, sex offenders are to register with the Department of Corrections Probation and Parole Office upon their release. Atherton failed to register with the local Probation and Parole Office in Maysville, in part because he has no permanent address and also because of an apparent gap in the legal system for registering sex offenders convicted of misdemeanor charges.

In July 2008, the mother of the 14-year-old female victim found out Atherton had failed to register and had in fact, left the Maysville area and was living in northern Kentucky.

At the time, Lisa Howard, program administrator for sex offender supervision at the Kentucky Department of Corrections said persons convicted of sex offense crimes are instructed by the court to fill out a "Duty to Register" form, issued by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Howard said someone was to advise Atherton to register either in open court or by the Duty to Register form, which should have been in Atherton's file. Persons convicted of felony sex crimes are required to register as sex offenders before being released from prison; there is no such requirement for those convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses and the responsibility rests on the convicted person, according to Howard.

The next step in the case against Atherton is a motion hearing scheduled for March 27 in Mason Circuit Court; during that hearing, the charges against Atherton will be dismissed without prejudice, which means if he is ever found to be competent to stand trial, the charges can be reinstated.

In the meantime, Adkins said his office has asked the office of Adult Protective Services/State Guardianship to file a petition, hopefully prior to the hearing, to provide assistance and stability to Atherton.

Adkins said that assistance or stability might come in the form of recommending Atherton be placed in a state psychiatric facility, such as Eastern State Hospital in Lexington or a group home.

"Someplace, somewhere where he would have close supervision over him," Adkins said.

Atherton is currently incarcerated at the Mason County Detention Center, awaiting an outcome to the felony charge.

"He potentially will be released on or after the 27th, we put out (on the hearing date) that far to give Adult Services time to file a petition to protect him and the public because we believe he is a danger to others," Adkins said. "We're not able to obtain any sort of plea in this case because of his mental state."

Adkins also said Simons, the doctor who conducted the evaluation was of the opinion Atherton's mental capacity would not improve.

When contacted, the mother of the victim said her family was not aware of the current state of Atherton's case. After being advised of the felony charges and psychiatric evaluation, she said "my primary concern and hers (daughter's) has been that this doesn't happen to anyone else ... however that gets done is fine. How it gets done or by what recourse, it doesn't matter. If he will be in custody or somewhere that he will not be able to harm another child." ..News Source.. by MARLA TONCRAY, News Editor