Woman Accused of Hate Crime Ruled Mentally Incompetent

After reviewing psychiatric reports, a judge Wednesday suspended the criminal case against Marie Elise West, the first person charged with a capital hate crime in Los Angeles County, and declared her mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael S. Luros ordered the 35-year-old Hermosa Beach woman to be transferred to Patton State Hospital, a mental health facility in San Bernardino County for patients who have been charged with felonies.

West was charged with running down and killing a 65-year-old restaurant worker with her car outside a Van Nuys bagel shop about 4 a.m. on Sept. 1, allegedly making anti-Latino slurs shortly afterward.

While prosecutors promised to continue pressing the case against West if her sanity is restored, the defendant said she believed the charges were ludicrous because she had no control over what she did.

In an hourlong telephone interview, West said she doesn’t remember running over anyone, but that she felt horrible when she was told afterward that a man had died. The interview had not been authorized by her attorneys.

“I’m so sorry,” West said from a pay phone in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles. “I wish I could apologize to the people, but I don’t know them. I didn’t know what I was doing at all. . . . I have a lot of regrets for what happened.”

With her husband, Al Bowman, also on the line, West spoke at a rapid-fire pace about her mental illness and incidents that led up to Jesus Plascencia’s death.

Psychiatrists on Both Sides Agree

In court Wednesday, Luros said he based his ruling on reports from a defense psychiatrist and a prosecution psychiatrist, both of whom agreed that she was not competent to stand trial.

“The key victory for us today is that they’re going to put her back on the [treatment] program,” Bowman said.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Millington said that if West is ever found fit for trial, she will be arraigned and the case against her will continue. “We’re definitely not dropping the charges,” Millington said.

West is accused of first-degree murder in the death of Plascencia, whom she allegedly ran over repeatedly with her Volvo. Plascencia, a bus boy, had been at the shop to pick up bagels for the Northridge restaurant where he worked.

After she allegedly ran over Plascencia, dragging his body onto the street, West drove back into the parking lot, parked her car, walked into the shop and bought a bagel, witnesses said. She then locked herself in her car until police forced her out.

Because witnesses told police they heard her express hatred toward Latinos, prosecutors filed murder charges under a section of California law that would make her eligible for the death penalty. According to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, West is the first person in Los Angeles County to be charged with a capital hate crime.

West’s family and her attorney, Carl A. “Tony” Capozzola, say the woman is severely mentally ill with a bipolar disorder and was in the middle of a “manic episode” at the time of Plascencia’s killing. They contend that West’s crime was involuntary manslaughter, not murder, and what she needs is better mental health care.

On the night before West allegedly ran over Plascencia, she was driving on the freeway looking for big trucks, she said.

“You know how you pull down your hand at the truckers? I was having fun getting truckers to honk,” West said.

West said she remembered little of what followed. “I just remember a light flashing at my eyes and they pulled me out. The next thing I know there were all these cops yelling at me.”

West said she had her first “nervous breakdown” about a decade ago, 12 weeks into her first year as a law student at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “Your brain doesn’t work. . . . My mouth would open and nothing comes out of my mouth. . . . You’re in a different reality. . . . You’re living in a delusional state.”

Victim’s Family: Illness ‘No Excuse’

West vehemently denied being racist, saying that she believed Latinos are superior than whites in many ways, and that her ex-husband, who was half African and half Italian, had “beautiful dark skin.”

In court Wednesday, West also tried to fire one of her attorneys, Al West, who also happens to be her brother. He declined comment.

Also in the courtroom were Plascencia’s family and one of his former work supervisors, who said that, regardless of West’s mental state, she should be held responsible for the elderly man’s death.

Mental illness “is no excuse. She should know how to control her illness,” said Plascencia’s nephew, Sal Hernandez. His uncle, he added, “was a kind man, loved by everybody.”

Dan Klisch, who co-manages Weiler’s Deli and Restaurant, where Plascencia once worked, said: “She directed her hate toward this guy who was from Mexico. That makes this a death penalty case, and we don’t think it should be any less.”