In February 2019, police accused Yohavnis Roque of killing his 2-year-old daughter in their Orange County home. Now, his defense attorney is working to try and persuade the state to avoid the death penalty after a doctor said Roque was insane at the time of the incident.
The nation-wide shutdown due to concerns over the coronavirus has impacted the defense’s ability to gather information, further delaying a case that likely will not see trial for several years because of its potential for capital punishment, Ryan Gertz said.
The body of Savanna Roque was found around 11 a.m. on Feb. 19, 2019, after the Orange Police Department received a call from a woman screaming that her “cousin just killed his daughter” in the house next door.
Once on scene in the 500 block of Azalea Avenue, the toddler was found in her bedroom. Police said the child had been bludgeoned with a hammer, and that the suspect was naked and "completely covered in blood.”
He has since been in the Orange County Jail in lieu of a $2 million bond.
While Roque awaits trial, Gertz said the prison system is doing the best it can with patients that might suffer from mental disorders, but they are not substitutes for mental health facilities.
“He is getting the proper medical treatment,” Gertz said of Roque. “He is getting medication and he is being seen, but — and this is not a knock on the Orange County Jail — generally, a jailhouse environment is not ideal.”
That sentiment is shared by Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens, who said steps have been taken to improve prison conditions for inmates that may have mental health problems.
“Every inmate that comes in gets mentally screened immediately because of the Sandra Bland law,” Stephens said. “When they come through the door, they get seen physically by our medical provider and assessed mentally. If they are determined to be in crisis, we put them in the care of our contract medical provider… Everyone gets screened to make sure they are not in crisis and aren’t suffering from anything that we need to monitor immediately. After we figure that out, we start trying to see if they have any mental health diagnosis or need to be on medications.”
Stephens said it is common for inmates to receive a mental health diagnosis for the first time while they are in the jail.
“We were dealing with the same folks over and over that were dealing with mental health issues, and there are not enough mental health beds in the state, let alone our local community,” she said. “Many times, local police agencies are riding around with them trying to figure out where to place them. They end up getting arrested for trespassing or other charges, because there is nowhere else to put them. I believe they don’t belong in our jail. If they have committed a crime, that is where they come.”
Stephens said while healthcare for inmates that have metal problems have improved, she would like to see more done.
“We used to not have medical staff to detox people at the jail,” she said. “We do now and it prevents police officers from having to take folks every day from the jail to the hospital and spend countless hours waiting for them to be medically cleared or detoxed. What Harris, Travis and Bexar counties are doing is they totally divert people they recognize, or have dealt with and know, have metal illness. They don’t bring them to jail, where they can get hurt or lost in the system. They bring them to a building where there are officers and a medical team that starts diverting and treating them for the mental health issues.”
While conditions are not ideal, Gertz said the jailhouse services Roque receives are better than nothing.
“From my perspective, they are doing the best they can with the resources they have, and he is being cared for better than he was on the outside when he was by himself,” he said.
Gertz is now focused on persuading the Orange County District Attorney to not seek the death penalty by putting together a package of medical files and interviews to trace Roque’s mental health decline. But the nationwide shut down due to concerns over COVID-19 has slowed the attorney’s ability to obtain information needed for his presentation to the state.
“This is a unique case,” Gertz said. “Everybody involved knows we’re not saying some third party is responsible for this. I’d be hurrying this up and saying let’s go so we can get the right guy. Here, especially when death is on the table, we want to make sure we get them everything and make sure we are detailed.”
Gertz said his client has not formally plead not guilty by way of insanity and believes Roque is competent to stand trial as long as he is properly medicated.
“Until we get to a trial setting, there is not going to be a formal plea of insanity, which is going to happen regardless if death is on the table or not. It our intention unless something dramatic changes.”
Source: beaumontenterprise.com, Chris Moore, June 21, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
