The Greenville News from Greenville, South Carolina • Page 7

7A Tuesday, July 11, 1995 The Greenville News JUDGE FROM PAGE 1 A consider his decision, and I bet he is, unless he is hell bent for leather on some personal agenda," Boren said. The rest of the trial's first day was taken up with jury selection in which 42 of the 147 potential jurors were dismissed or dropped, mostly for previous criminal convictions. The remaining jurors were split into nine groups of as many as 13, but questioning of the first six was postponed by the competency issue. Smith is on trial for drowning her two sons by rolling her car into a Union County lake in October with the boys strapped in their car seats in with Morgan's assessment. "People are not mentally incompetent simply because they want to kill themselves," he said.

"Less than 2 percent of people who commit suicide are mentally ill." Frederick who specializes in suicides said he has testified in hundreds of criminal trials for the defense and prosecution. The decision to pursue the death penalty should be reconsidered, said Jim Boren, chairman of the National Association of Defense Attorneys' death penalty committee. "I think the prosecutor has to re the back. Morgan's report, dated April 24, concluded that Susan Smith was competent to stand trial and noted that while "seriously depressed, she retains the ability to work with her lawyers in a rational manner." "While it would be painful and difficult for her to testify, she has the ability to do so," he wrote in the April evaluation report released Monday. But after spending time with her at the courthouse Monday, Morgan See JUDGE on page 8A start this case if I was prosecuting.

I've never heard of it before," said Dick Harpootlian, a former prosecutor and Columbia defense attorney. George Kendall, assistant counsel for the national Legal Defense Fund in New York, said Morgan's testimony "is a real problem. There is no way the judge can place the defendant in a position in which she cannot testify. I don't see him having a great choice, unless he wants to roll the dice." Dr. Calvin Frederick, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California-Los Angeles, disagreed believed she knew right from wrong at the time of the drowning and was able to conform her actions to the law.

Pope also argued that Smith was competent under the legal definition, and that she had a constitutional right to admit her guilt to the jury just as she could plead guilty before the judge. Defense specialists said Morgan's testimony creates problems for the prosecution in its move to seek the death penalty. "It's troubling for the prosecution and certainly not the way I'd want to If. Wednesday, July 12th SAI A. Store hours 8am to 10 pm.

It. Ik M' Ik tr. tt i F. r- v. "1 0 0 him go isOltq journ for the day without ruling.

The competency issue was expected to be little more than a formality, but it occupied most of the afternoon. If she is found incompetent, Smith's trial would be delayed indefinitely while she undergoes treatment until her condition improves. If the trial does go on, prosecutor Tommy Pope must deal with Morgan's other finding that she is mentally ill and suffered an disorder" before and during the period her sons were drowned. In testimony that seemed almost contradictory at times, Morgan said Smith was not suffering from major depression but was suicidal the night she drove to the lake. However, she was not suicidal in the nine days that followed, when she claimed the boys were abducted by a carjacker.

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