Tests Ordered for Hate-Crime Suspect

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation Friday for a white woman who has been charged with murder and hate crimes after allegedly using her car to run down and kill a Latino man in Van Nuys earlier this month.

Marie Elise West, 35, of Hermosa Beach, is the first person in Los Angeles County to be charged under a state law that permits capital punishment for a hate-crime slaying, according to the district attorney’s office.

The law applies to anyone who intentionally kills another because of that person’s race, color, religion, nationality or country of origin.

Judge Michael M. Duffey suspended the criminal case pending the outcome of a psychiatric evaluation. The examination is to be conducted by two psychiatrists--one selected by the defense and the other by the prosecution--who will advise the court on West’s competency to stand trial.

As Duffey was making his remarks, he was interrupted repeatedly by West, who was in a sheriff’s holding area off the courtroom, out of view of spectators.

“I refuse to enter a plea,” West bellowed. “I refuse to enter a plea.”

Duffey repeatedly assured West that she was not being asked to enter a plea. He set a hearing in the court’s psychiatric unit for Oct. 11.

West is charged with repeatedly running her car over Jesus Plascensia, 65, in the parking lot next to a Van Nuys bagel bakery Sept. 1. Authorities said witnesses heard her make comments about her hatred of persons of Latino origin. A bakery employee said West referred to Plascensia as “a dead road kill.”

Members of Plascensia’s family were in court on Friday. After court, one relative said she wanted West to pay for her alleged crime, regardless of her mental state.

At an impromptu news conference in front of the courthouse, West’s attorney, Carl A. “Tony” Capozzola, said his client is a victim of a dysfunctional mental health system.

He also rejected any notion that West is a racist, saying that her first marriage was to an African American man and that her present husband is of Mexican descent.

Capozzola described West as an accomplished woman who began a downward spiral into mental illness as a Boalt Hall law student at UC Berkeley. He said she has had 20 hospitalizations between Sept. 10, 1990 and March 2000 and has struggled to find outpatient therapy.

“Executing the mentally ill is one of the cruelest things the state can accomplish,” Capozzola said.

On Sept. 1, Plascensia went to the Western Bagel bakery at 4 a.m. as he had done every morning for years to pick up bagels for Weiler’s Deli and Restaurant in Northridge, where he had worked for 12 years.

That morning, as usual, he picked up the bags of bagels and walked toward his car. West allegedly then ran over Plascensia at least twice, dragging his body into the middle of Sepulveda Boulevard, where it remained until after dawn, police investigators said.

According to bakery employees, West drove back into the parking lot, parked her car, walked into the shop and bought a bagel. Returning to her car, she got in and locked the doors. She had to be forcibly removed by arresting officers.