Prosecutors get 60 days to rebut insanity finding

Defendant held in 2 slayings

Prosecutors have two months to decide whether to challenge findings by state doctors that a Little Rock man accused of killing his father and another man was insane at the time, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen ruled Thursday.

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Griffen gave deputy prosecutor John Hout 60 days to hire a psychologist to review the records and test results that state doctors used to diagnose 32-year-old Opio Anton Hardin and reach a conclusion, which Hout said prosecutors will accept as the final word on Hardin's sanity.

Prosecutors wanted another review of Hardin's mental health out of "an abundance of caution," given that Hardin is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Hout said. They need the judge's permission for their expert to see Hardin's mental-health records.

"We want to get it right based on the severity of the two cases," he told the judge.

Griffen said the review is the prosecution's "one last chance."

"If you can't get it down in 60 days, remember in baseball, you only get three strikes," the judge said. "I am not inclined to kick this can down the road any further. We need to get this resolved."

The final decision on whether Hardin stands trial is up to the judge. If the prosecution's expert conflicts with the state doctors, the judge will hold a hearing to hear testimony from the doctors to make his decision.

If Hardin is deemed to have been insane when Torence Nelson, 37, and Charlie Hardin Jr., 70, were killed in separate incidents in October 2012, he'll be acquitted by reason of mental disease.

But Hardin, who has been in custody since shortly after Nelson was killed on Oct. 4, 2012, would not be released. He would be transferred into the custody of the Arkansas State Hospital and undergo another mental evaluation -- his third in this case -- for state doctors to determine a treatment program.

He would be court ordered to follow that plan and would remain under court supervision until state doctors decide he can progress from the hospital into an assisted-release plan. Then, he would have to follow that release plan for five years without violating it to be considered for release from court supervision.

In two separate mental evaluations conducted about 11 months apart, the most recent from March, state doctors have diagnosed Hardin with paranoid schizophrenia, finding that he could not control himself or tell right from wrong when the men were killed.

He'd been hospitalized in 2009 for mental problems, which his mother blamed on his Army service in the Iraq War between 2004 and 2005, according to the report. He'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia by state doctors in 2010.

According to the March report, Hardin was psychotic when he was committed to the hospital for examination in July 2013. Treatment at the hospital has improved his condition to the point where he understands what is going on and is competent to participate in his defense, according to the March evaluation.

Five witnesses saw Hardin at the home on West 22nd Street in Little Rock where Nelson was killed, court filings show.

The victim was listening to music through headphones when Hardin approached him and the men exchanged words, according to one witness account.

The witness said Hardin left the room, then came back, walked up to Nelson, shot him in the head at close range and left. A second witness told police Hardin told him he had just "blasted" someone and needed a ride to his mother's home.

Police arrested him about five hours later at the intersection of Charles Bussey Drive and Minor Lane where he was changing a flat tire on a white Toyota Tacoma, with a Walther PPK .380 pistol on the rear bumper. He declined to answer questions for police, court records show. His father's cellphone, driver's license and American Express card were inside the sport utility vehicle along with a Jennings Byrco 9mm pistol.

While searching for Hardin that night, police went to his Loblolly Drive home where they found his brother, 34-year-old Chaka Hardin.

Told by the officers that they were investigating a homicide, Chaka Hardin asked whether his father had been killed.

Knowing that the Tacoma that Opio Hardin was driving belonged to his father, police went to the senior Hardin's home on East 15th Street to check on him. The front door was unlocked and the front porch had several newspapers on it.

Detectives went inside but didn't find Charlie Hardin. They did find a "significant amount of blood spatter" on two boxes in the house.

Opio Hardin told police from jail that he had taken his father to the veterans hospital the day before, but wouldn't answer any more questions, court filings show.

About a month later, Charlie Hardin's body was found in the 1500 block of Woodyard Road in Little Rock. He had been shot in the head with a shotgun, and had to be identified through DNA collected from his toothbrush, court filings show.

When police told Opio Hardin they had found his father, he asked to see a picture of the man. Shown the medical examiner's picture of the dead man, Hardin began laughing, court records show. Asked if he wanted to give a statement, Hardin responded, "I don't know what to say," and declined to speak further.

Prosecutors ...

Metro on 06/06/2014

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