Key question in Day case is whether slayings were planned

QCS Managing Editor

A key question in the Tony Day double-murder case is whether Day, then 14, planned the slayings of his adoptive mother Sue Day and her daughter Sherry Folts on Nov. 26, 2012, or committed the them while in a “dissociative” state.

According to Psych Central, a well regarded Internet-based independent mental health social network, “a dissociative disorder impairs the normal state of awareness and limits or alters one’s sense of identity, memory or consciousness.”

This question is likely to be addressed in hearings scheduled for July 23-25 on whether Day would respond favorably to behavioral health treatment, a discussion on procedural matters Wednesday In Tenth Judicial District court revealed.

Both Buckels and Rose have said the outcome of this “amenability to treatment” hearing is likely to have major impact on how the case proceeds after the hearing. They agreed last year, with Mitchell concurring, that in Day’s case, the usual order of proceedings—first a trial to determine guilt or innocence, followed by a procedure to determine amenability to treatment—should be reversed.

In Wednesday’s procedural discussion Tenth Judicial District Judge Albert Mitchell wanted to be clear that Tenth Judicial District Attorney Tim Rose was going to try to show premeditation in Day’s trial, and that Jeffrey Buckels, Day’s defense attorney, would try to show there was no premeditation. Both sides agree that Day committed the slayings by stabbing and shooting the victims to death, and that the crimes were “aggressive and violent.”

Rose said he would try to show that Day had been planning the slayings for up to a year. Jeffrey Buckels, Day’s defense attorney, on the other hand, said he would try to demonstrate that Day was in a dissociative state when he committed the slayings.

“If he was in a dissociative state,” Buckels said, “you cannot find premeditation.”

Buckels also expressed concern at the length of the list of witnesses that Rose presented for the amenability hearing.

Mitchell, Buckels and Rose agreed to find out whether some of the witnesses’ testimony could be gathered through depositions rather than through live testimony on the witness stand.

Mitchell said the ultimate goal of the amenability hearing is that when the hearing is completed, “we have something in place to make sure this (the slayings) will not happen again.”