By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
The third capital-murder trial of Gary W. Black is scheduled to start Aug. 2 in Joplin if the defendant’s objections to his medical care while in jail do not delay proceedings further.
Black, 54, has been twice convicted of first-degree murder in the 1998 stabbing death of 28-year-old college student Jason O. Johnson in downtown Joplin and twice given the death penalty. Both convictions were overturned, with the Missouri Supreme Court ruling in 2007 that he should have been allowed to act as his own attorney at the second trial.
Trial date
At a hearing this week, Circuit Judge David Mouton designated Aug. 2 for the first day of testimony in Black’s third trial in Jasper County Circuit Court. Jurors will be selected in Cass County on July 29-30 and brought to Joplin to hear the case. The jury will be sequestered throughout the trial, which is anticipated to last about five days.
Black no longer wishes to represent himself at his third trial. Joplin attorney William Fleischaker was appointed as his trial counsel last year at the defendant’s request.
Before setting dates for the trial and a number of remaining pre-trial hearings, the judge closed this week’s hearing at the request of the defense for a discussion of matters related to Black’s health. Mouton subsequently overruled a motion the defense had filed seeking to compel “proper medical treatment” of the defendant at the Jasper County Jail or a return of him to the care and custody of the Fulton State Hospital for the duration of his pre-trial period.
The motion stated that Black suffered medical emergencies related to his diabetes and high blood pressure in January, February and June of last year while incarcerated at the jail. He underwent a court-ordered mental-health examination at Fulton State Hospital between October and December 2009, and was diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes mellitus type II, according to the motion.
When he was discharged from the hospital and sent back to the jail, he was given medical orders to remain on a diabetic diet and various medications, which Black maintains he has been denied at the jail. The motion states that jail staff has refused to provide much of the prescribed medication or has given it to him at the wrong time of day.
Before the judge closed the hearing this week, Prosecutor Dean Dankelson and Assistant Prosecutor Norman Rouse argued that the motion was not a matter for a criminal proceeding. They said the defendant has other avenues through the courts to lodge such a complaint.
“There is nothing in the findings (of Black’s mental-health exam last year) that would warrant sending the defendant to Fulton,” Dankelson told the court. “He does not have a mental disease or defect.”
Black and his attorney withdrew a request at the hearing for a second mental-health examination by a psychiatrist of his own choosing, a right he has under court rules.
Fatal intersection
Gary Black is accused of pursuing Jason Johnson on Oct. 2, 1998, to Fifth Street and Joplin Avenue, and stabbing him in the neck as Johnson sat in a pickup truck at a stop light.
Testimony at Black’s first two trials concerned an encounter Johnson had with Black’s girlfriend inside a convenience store on East Fourth Street minutes before the stabbing. Witnesses testified that Johnson had brushed up against the woman and apologized, but Black apparently took umbrage over the matter.
