BANGOR, Maine — Convicted murderer Roxanne Jeskey should have been prescribed antipsychotic medication during her trial so she was better able to assist in her own defense, her attorney Joseph Baldacci of Bangor, told the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber countered that Superior Court Justice E. Allan Hunter correctly concluded after a jury-waived trial that the night Jeskey killed her husband she was capable of goal-directed behavior and knew that what she had done was wrong.
Jeskey is seeking a new trial.
“Many people struggle with these kinds of mental health issues [as Jeskey did], but they don’t commit this kind of heinous murder,” Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley told Baldacci.
Baldacci said that he and co-counsel David Bate of Bangor signed affidavits concerning a Jan. 1, 2014, incident when they witnessed “an active psychotic event.”
“The court should have granted our request on Jan. 2, 2014, that asked for a medical psychiatrist to examine her,” Baldacci said. “It was a reasonable request that should have been honored.”
The defendant previously was examined by psychologists, he said.
Macomber told the justices that the night she killed her husband, Jeskey spoke rationally to a neighbor, called her husband’s boss to say he was not coming to work, and was coherent when interviewed by police and examined by an emergency room nurse.
The standard is whether she was sane when she murdered Richard Jeskey, he said.
Roxanne Jeskey, 52, is serving a 50-year sentence at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham for the murder of her husband, Richard Jeskey, 53, of Bangor, on June 13, 2011.
Her earliest possible release date is Oct. 23, 2054, according to information posted on the Department of Corrections inmate locator.
Roxanne Jeskey pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the charge but twice was found competent to stand trial. Her jury-waived trial was held before Hunter in December and January 2014. She was found guilty May 30, 2014, of intentional and knowing murder and depraved indifference murder in connection with the death.
Richard Jeskey suffered extensive multiple blunt and sharp force injuries to the head, neck, torso, limbs and genitalia, according to a previously published report. He also was strangled with sufficient force to break the hyoid bone of his neck.
The hyoid bone is the bone located at the top of the neck under the chin.
Hunter concluded the injuries were inflicted with a plastic baseball bat, razor, wooden and metal rods from broken towel racks, a pair of needle-nosed pliers and perhaps other implements. In announcing the verdict, the judge called the attack “monstrous.”
The justices will convene Thursday morning at Washington Academy in East Machias to hear oral arguments in three cases, including an appeal by Christopher Knight, also known as the North Pond Hermit. They will attend the dedication of an addition to the Washington County Courthouse at 1:30 p.m.
There is no timetable under which the justices must issue a decision.