The case of a Concord man charged with murder for the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Nia Wilson at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland in 2018 remained on track Wednesday when a judge ruled that he’s mentally competent to stand trial.
John Lee Cowell, 29, is charged with murder and attempted murder for allegedly stabbing Wilson and her sister, 26-year-old Letifah Wilson, on the platform at the MacArthur station at 9:36 p.m. on July 22, 2018.
Cowell also is charged with a special circumstance allegation that he killed Wilson while lying in wait, a charge that would result in life in prison without parole or the death penalty if he’s convicted.
But the case against Cowell, who has a history of mental health problems, has moved slowly because his attorney Christina Moore has raised questions about his mental competency to stand trial.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge James Cramer suspended the criminal proceedings against Cowell on Dec. 27, 2018, saying there was “substantial evidence” that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial.
But at a hearing on July 17, Cramer reinstated the criminal proceedings, based in part on a report by psychiatrist Jason Roof of University of California at Davis that found Cowell was competent to stand trial.
One psychiatrist who had examined Cowell earlier in 2019 said he believed Cowell was incompetent to stand trial but another expert said he was unable to arrive at a conclusion about Cowell’s competency.
Moore said at a hearing on Dec. 20 that she had new concerns about Cowell’s competency so Cramer appointed Roof to examine Cowell again on Monday at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where he is being held without bail.
At a short hearing Wednesday afternoon, Cramer said that based on Roof’s new report and Cowell’s demeanor and responsiveness when he entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea last week, he believes the defense hasn’t met its burden of showing that there’s substantial evidence of a changed circumstance that indicates that Cowell is now incompetent.
“The criminal proceedings are not suspended,” Cramer said at the hearing, which was attended by about 30 of Wilson’s family members, friends and supporters.
Cramer’s ruling means that jury selection for Cowell’s trial will continue Thursday in the courtroom of another judge, Superior Court Judge Allan Hymer, who’s an expert on mental health legal issues.
The first panel of potential jurors in the case was brought into Hymer’s courtroom on Wednesday morning to fill out questionnaires.
Cowell’s case is moving along quickly now because Cowell recently invoked his right to a speedy trial.
On Tuesday, Hymer denied a defense motion asking that Cowell’s trial be moved out of Alameda County because of all the publicity his case has received.
Being an evil scum bag does not equate to being mentally incompetent. The guy’s a useless stool and needs to be eliminated from society forever.
My sentiments exactly.
This crime by this habitual criminal and BART fare evader should never have happened. Skum of the earth that never should have been let back into society. He lost patience and stabbed Nita and her sister because a lady with a kid in a stroller blocked their path to disemark the train. I hope this dude gets his in prison. Hey BART and Concord, there are many more hanging around your stations riding every day for free endangering the lives of others. BART sucks for letting someone they had just arrested a couple of weeks before right back into their system. PATHETIC. I hooe Nita’s sister and family get a huge settlement for BART’s continued negligence.
I have believed all along that Cowell was competent to stand trial.
I also believe he is guilty. I believe the video.
I hope Cowell is found guilty and I hope his punishment is as harsh as the law allows.
This man is pure evil. What he did is so violent and cruel. He needs to stay out of society for ever.
Mr. Cowell is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law whether or not he is found competent to stand trial. I do not believe he can get a fair trial anywhere in the Bay Area because of pretrial media coverage and the media’s inability to balance the Wilson family’s appeals for attention in the case. I would have granted a change of venue to protect Mr. Cowell’s rights which are now in jeopardy.
@gittyup
If he gets out, why don’t you let him live with you?
How about he had just been arrested for stabbing someone else. Yeah, let him live at your homeless camp you idiit.
Your bleeding heart is showing, buddy. Yes let him live with you and see how much you enjoy that.
I am so broken up about Mr Cowell’s “rights”. You lose those “rights” when you brutally murder a young woman.
@gittyup
I used to think all lives are equal, but I wised up. Why is the habitual felons life equal to the guy who does the right thing everyday?
Also, you can’t help those who won’t help themselves.
Don’t worry, he will get a fair trial, probably one with a lenient outcome. After all this is California, a criminal sanctuary.
@ Gittyup
You will never be able to seat a jury that “is not aware of the issues” in a high profile case like murder. Having no knowledge of the case is not and never has been a legal requirement. Crime, especially murderers do not happen in a vacuum.
The question is can you find 12 jurors which are made up of a cross section of the community in which the charged offense was committed hear the case without bias or whether there is any other reason why they cannot be fair and impartial. I for one, am confident that out of 1.7 million people in Alameda Co they can find 12 who can hear this case impartially. If he’s convicted he can always appeal his conviction on those grounds.
Those 12 jurors are his peers; they are not his duplicates. They need not and probably will never have all the defendants experiences, trial or tribulations and it would be unreasonable to expect it to be so.
When you said ” I seriously doubt his jury will be of his peers” I surely hope you did not mean he could not receive a fair trial if people from a different race were selected for the jury or the jury should be limited to only people with documented mental health issues! A rigged jury would not be fair for one of the involved parties, either the dependent or the People. It would also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment – Batson v. Kentucky (1986) & Johnson v. California (2005).
How the family chooses to deal with their grief, whether it be seclusion or in public is their business and their business alone. They are not advocates for person they believed murdered their family member and it is asinine to think they would be. They are advocates for murder victim and they would like nothing more then to see the defendant’s head on pike mounted outside a BART station – figuratively speaking. That is why the People of the State of California will be prosecuting the defendant and the family will be observers in the gallery.
Hey idiot! You’re only right to the point of a trial needs to occur first. But he’s been identified by the surviving victim. And explain to me the rights of a lost life? He did it and now he must answer for his cowardly act!
As I’ve said before, insanity defenses in murder cases don’t make sense to me. With the clear exceptions of war, law enforcement, or self defense, who in their right mind would kill another person? Seems to me you could claim insanity in any murder cases.
Bottom line, he’s wacked and needs to be taken out of society before he kills someone else!
I hope someone does take him out before we taxpayers have to pay for a trial for this waste of humanity and a prison cell for him to live for the rest of his life. He was well known to law enforcement who failed the public as well as BART.
Law enforcement can only do so much under the law. Once an arrest is made, it’s typically the DA that fails the system by not prosecuting. Unfortunately, people don’t realize that.