AUGUSTA, Maine — Leroy Smith III on Thursday entered a plea of not criminally responsible for the 2014 murder of his father in Gardiner. His plea came just as a jury was seated for a trial scheduled to begin Monday at the Capitol Judicial Center.
Smith, 27, is charged with murdering his father, 56-year-old Leroy Smith II, in May 2014. He then allegedly dismembered the body and placed remains in a wooded area along a dirt road in Richmond.
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber, who is prosecuting the case, said he expects the trial, scheduled to start on Monday, to take one day. Smith is expected to testify.
Smith previously pleaded not guilty, but on Thursday entered a “bifurcated plea” of not criminally responsible, according to Macomber.
With a bifurcated plea, Smith will stand trial for murder, and if the jury finds him guilty, a judge will then consider whether he is criminally responsible.
Macomber said he would not oppose a finding of not criminally responsible.
The jury will not know of the bifurcated plea or of the potential consequences for Smith. According to Macomber, if he is found not criminally responsible, Smith will be committed to Riverview Psychiatric Center.
Smith’s attorney, Pam Ames, did not immediately return a phone call on Thursday.
Smith has remained in state custody, either at Riverview Psychiatric Center or Kennebec County Jail, since his arrest on May 6, 2014.
Shortly after his arrest, Smith allegedly told police that he killed and “filleted” his father because the older man had sexually abused him throughout his life, according to court documents. He has since said his father gave him rat poison.
In January 2015, a state forensic expert testified that Smith likely suffers from schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia or delusional disorder and believes he is “the god of the kingdom of Heaven,” and that the primary role of his attorneys is to put him in touch with heavy metal rock bands so he could tell them he is God.
Justice Donald Marden found Smith not competent to stand trial, although Smith refused psychiatric medication to treat the delusions and maintained he did not have a mental illness, Riverview staff told the court.
In January 2016, Smith was the first person forced under a new state law to be involuntarily medicated with antipsychotic drugs to see if he could become competent for trial.
Six months later, Kennebec County Superior Court Justice Donald Marden ruled Smith remained delusional, but in May 2017, Justice Michaela Murphy said that the medication had made him competent to assist his attorneys and stand trial.
Macomber said it took approximately one hour to seat the jury on Thursday.