Prosecutor, Attorney, Judge Untying Competency Knot

When Jane Irene Moller’s three-year commitment to Patton State Hospital ended almost two years ago, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted her in a Newport Beach murder case sat down with her defense attorney and asked the question that still puzzles both of them today: “What do we do now?”

Neither of them wants Moller, now 45, to go to state prison on charges that she murdered the 76-year-old woman who employed her as a housekeeper. That’s because the flurry of doctors who have interviewed Moller all say she suffers from extreme mental illness.

The lawyers decided to start her case anew by holding another hearing in Superior Court to determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

But Wednesday a jury deadlocked, voting 8 to 4 in favor of competency. After talking to the lawyers, Judge James R. Franks II scheduled a new competency hearing with a new jury next week.

“The system just wasn’t designed for the Jane Moller case,” said her frustrated prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas M. Goethals.

Moller, who is from Huntington Beach, called herself a physical therapist but actually worked most of the time in massage parlors. After raising three children and getting married three times--each of them failed--she took jobs as a live-in housekeeper. She went to work for Helen DeWolf, who lived alone and suffered from arthritis and cancer, in late October, 1982.

On Nov. 27, about a month later, DeWolf’s body was found in her bathroom, covered with a blanket. She had been stabbed repeatedly and beaten with a blunt object. Evidence led Newport Beach police to arrest Moller the next day.

Moller not only denied the attack, she denied that she had even worked for the victim.

When doctors said Moller was not competent to stand trial in early 1983, Superior Court Judge Luis A. Cardenas ordered her sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino.

For years, the law permitted the hospital to keep a patient for the same length of time as the prison sentence, had the suspect been convicted. But shortly before Moller was arrested, the state Supreme Court ruled that such a provision violated due-process protections.

The Legislature subsequently passed a law providing for different periods of incarceration in such cases, depending upon the circumstances, but setting a maximum commitment of three years.

Since leaving Patton, Moller has been in Orange County Jail, refusing to see more doctors.

Prosecutor Goethals and Moller’s attorney, George Peters of Santa Ana, sat down with Judge Franks in March and tried to come up with a solution. Goethals did not want her sent to state prison, but he also wasn’t willing to set her free.

“We actually tried to manipulate the system just to set up something for her,” Peters said. “But we finally decided we just couldn’t do it.”

That led to this week’s competency hearing and a stalemated jury.

If Goethals wins at next week’s hearing, and a jury declares Moller competent, then she will stand trial on murder charges. If convicted, she could end up in state prison.

“I don’t want that to happen, but the woman definitely belongs in some kind of hospital,” Goethals said. “You can bet I’m available to listen to any possible alternatives to prison for her.”

If Peters wins, and a jury declares Moller incompetent, then the case would go to a different jury for a conservatorship hearing.

At that time, Goethals would ask the jury to declare that she is a danger to the community. If the jury were to agree, then the county’s public administrator would be appointed guardian, and Moller could be committed to a state hospital.

“We’ve never had a conservatorship from a criminal case in Orange County, but we’ve researched it, and it’s been done in Los Angeles,” Goethals said.

Peters would argue at the conservatorship hearing that, although Moller is not competent to stand trial, she is not dangerous.

“The ideal solution for my client would be to set her free but have her on some kind of outpatient therapy,” Peters said.

“But it’s not an ideal world. And I can understand why Tom (Goethals) wants her in a hospital.”

There would be irony in a conservatorship hearing: Goethals has just spent a week picking holes in the arguments of two psychiatrists and a psychologist that Moller is incompetent. But at a conservatorship hearing, he would have to use those same doctors to stress her mental illness to show that she is dangerous.

“It’s the craziest situation I’ve ever been involved in,” Goethals said.

Peters said he believes it’s unfair for Moller to have to stand trial because she has not been able to assist him in preparing a defense:

“There have to be factors involved which could mitigate the seriousness of the crime, perhaps reduce a murder to a manslaughter. But she won’t help me. She just blocks out anything about what happened.”

A third party in the picture is Moller’s family. They want her set free. But they also recognize that she is probably mentally ill.

One of her daughters, Zaneda Martinez of Riverside, is seething over what has happened to her mother. “Would you be competent, after five years of going back and forth between Patton and jail, having all those doctors shoved at you?” she asked.

“My mother should be free. She has a grandson she has never even seen.”

Freedom does not appear likely. But Peters said he is confident that “there is going to be a just outcome in this case.”