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The case against a man accused of killing 16-year-old Patterson High School student Izaiah Carter in March 2023 appears poised to head to trial after doctors rejected concerns he raised about his mental state now and at the time of the fatal shooting.
Psychiatrists with the Circuit Court for Baltimore’s Medical Services Division evaluated Roger Alvarado-Mendoza, finding that he was capable of understanding court proceedings and assisting his attorney now.
On Wednesday, retired Judge Gale E. Rasin, who presides over the circuit court’s mental health court docket, deemed Alvarado-Mendoza, 24, competent to stand trial.
“He was not diagnosed with a major mental illness either currently or at the time of the offense,” Rasin said.
She noted the court doctors also believed Alvarado-Mendoza was not suffering from a mental disorder at the time he allegedly killed Carter that would’ve prevented him from understanding such an act was illegal.
Alvarado-Mendoza’s attorney, Antonios A. Heper, said in court that he planned to withdraw his plea of not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. The decision of how to proceed in the case ultimately belongs to a defendant, and Rasin said Heper had to consult his client before withdrawing the plea. Defendants can pursue opinions about criminal responsibility from other doctors if they disagree with those rendered by court, or state, psychiatrists.
Heper did not respond to a message requesting comment left with his law office Wednesday.
Alvarado-Mendoza is accused of gunning down Carter, remembered by friends as caring and funny, at Joseph Lee Park, which is behind Patterson High, in the afternoon of March 6, 2023. The daytime shooting rattled Southwest Baltimore. The owner of the restaurant and wine bar Forno, where Carter washed dishes, said he was a “good kid.”
Police officers found Carter laying face down in a field. He had been shot in the head and died at nearby Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital Center shortly after being taken there.
Security video showed a group of Black students walking to the field in the park, where there was a small group of Hispanic males, according to charging documents. Witnesses told police they heard about three or four gunshots before the groups ran away in opposite directions.
Detectives wrote in charging documents that Alvarado-Mendoza confessed to shooting someone in a text message. They also said a confidential informant called investigators to say that he was with Alvarado-Mendoza, who the informant claimed confessed to killing a “Black kid” and said he tossed the gun he used in a body of water. By then, police already had searched Alvarado-Mendoza’s house and spoken to his mother, who said he had packed up his belongings and vanished. A previous informant had told detectives Alvarado-Mendoza planned to leave the state.
Then-Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said at the time of Alvarado-Mendoza’s arrest last March that he was apprehended in Texas while attempting to flee the country. In court June 26 in response to questions from Rasin, Alvarado-Mendoza said he’d been deported once and returned to the United States because of “problems in Honduras.”
A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, did not respond Wednesday to questions about Alvarado-Mendoza’s immigration status.
The judge’s ruling Wednesday followed a hearing last week where Alvarado-Mendoza, through a Spanish interpreter, claimed not to remember meeting with court doctors for more than three hours in April.
“I find that extraordinary,” Rasin said June 26 “I have here a long report in which (a doctor) describes all the things you told him.”
“The truth is that I don’t remember him speaking with me,” Alvarado-Mendoza responded.
Rasin questioned Alvarado-Mendoza about several things he allegedly told the doctors. In court, Alvarado-Mendoza disputed several statements Rasin pulled from the doctors’ report.
His reported memory loss along with disputing elements of the report prompted Rasin to email the court’s medical department for advice on how to proceed. She read a response from the medical department’s deputy director aloud in court Wednesday.
“Mr. Alvarado-Mendoza presented well,” the deputy director said. “There was no evidence of a major thought or affective disorder. There was also no concern for the defendant’s memory/recall, cognition, intellect or attention. With the assistance of an interpreter, the evaluators had a separate conversation with the defendant’s mother. Statements by the defendant were confirmed by her.”
Rasin allowed Heper to ask his client in court Wednesday whether he’d suffered any head injuries that could have contributed to memory loss. When asked, Alvarado-Mendoza said he’d been assaulted in jail. By video call, he showed a scar on his wrist and said he was treated by medical staff.
Citing an apparent lack of head injuries, Rasin said she was not convinced the assault would have yielded memory loss.