Inmate Accused of 2 Jail Murders Defends Competency to Stand Trial

Orange County Jail inmate Jerry Thomas Pick, accused of killing two cellmates in separate incidents in January, ended three days of testimony at a competency hearing Thursday by declaring to his own attorney, “I bet you that I’m more competent than you are.”

Pick, a 24-year-old transient, steadfastly refused to discuss the two incidents. He also refused to discuss prosecutors’ allegations that two months ago he tried to assault a fellow inmate who had testified against him at his preliminary hearing.

But Pick freely admitted that approximately 15 times he had set fire to his mattress or deliberately flooded or damaged his cell in attempts to get jail officials to move him to a different area.

Pick is accused of the Jan. 17 beating death of 71-year-old John Franklin Wilcox and the Jan. 31 strangling of Arthur Oviedo. Pick had been transferred to Oviedo’s cell after Wilcox’s death, which officials said at the time was from natural causes.

It wasn’t until after Oviedo’s death that a new autopsy was ordered on Wilcox’s body, and pathologists agreed that bruises to the midsection had contributed to his death.

Pick is charged with murder in each case. If convicted of multiple first-degree murder, he could be sentenced to life without parole.

Mental, Physical Disorders

Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride is conducting a jury hearing in Santa Ana to determine whether Pick is mentally competent to stand trial.

Pick’s attorney, Milton C. Grimes, said Pick suffered a head injury in a 1981 vehicular accident in his native Ohio that left him with both mental and physical disorders.

Throughout Pick’s testimony, he constantly shook when he talked, which Grimes said is the result of a head tic.

Prosecutors do not dispute that Pick has some mental disorders.

But for Pick to be declared incompetent to stand trial, his attorney must prove that he not only has a mental disorder, but that he does not understand the nature of the charges against him, his role in the proceedings and cannot help his attorney prepare a defense.

Pick said he is the victim of a conspiracy by the Central Intelligence Agency.

“I can’t get past this CIA thing with him for him to help me prepare a defense,” Grimes said after court.

Grimes was not surprised by Pick’s continual outbursts that he is not incompetent. Most people suffering from mental disorders do not want to admit it, Grimes said.

“Jerry is a very proud person. He does not want the stigma that’s attached to being declared incompetent,” Grimes said.

Pick was inconsistent in his attitude toward questions by Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown on cross-examination. For example, he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights when Brown began asking questions about police allegations that Pick had stolen a car.

But Pick freely admitted that on another occasion he had stolen a tow truck to retaliate for an earlier time when his car had been towed by the same company.

Pick also freely admitted that he was in the Orange County Jail in January because he had tried to steal a purse from an elderly woman--”a little old bowlegged woman,” he called her--at a Target store, where he was jumped by several people after she refused to let go of the purse.

Pick also talked at length about what he said are unfair conditions at the Orange County Jail. He said he has been beaten and constantly harassed by jail deputies. Pick said the deputies “keep their stinking eyes on me” every time he returns from court.

Pick also complained about Grimes. At one point he turned to Judge McBride and asked, “What if it turns out later that Mr. Grimes is incompetent?”

Pick complained that he is depressed about newspaper articles about him in which “not one good thing is ever said about me.” And he complained to Grimes that in his discussions with the news media after Pick’s court appearances, “You never once said a single thing that was in my favor.”

Jail reports show that Pick and Wilcox apparently had argued in the cell after Wilcox became ill and began coughing up phlegm. No details of the Oviedo incident have been released, and Pick, on advice from counsel, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights when Brown asked him about it.

Wood’s Testimony

Pick also cited his right to refuse self-incrimination when Brown asked him about a fellow inmate, Trent Wood, who testified against Pick at his preliminary hearing in May. Wood testified that Pick admitted to him that he had killed both victims.

In August, prosecutors alleged, Pick made a garrote out of rope and approached Wood’s cell. When he couldn’t get in, prosecutors said, Pick broke a broom handle in two and used it as a spear to poke at Wood inside the cell. Jail deputies broke it up.

Pick would only say that he was surprised that Wood “turned on me and told all those lies at my hearing” and added: “There is a day that he will pay for the lies he has told.”

Martha L. Rogers, a court-appointed forensic psychologist from Fullerton who has examined Pick at the jail, is scheduled to testify Monday.

Pick said in court Thursday that Rogers is “a cutthroat psychiatrist” out to get him.