Psych interview legal in murder case

Associated Press

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa.

A judge says an Iraq war veteran wasn’t entitled to a defense attorney when he was interviewed by a psychiatrist hired by prosecutors who have charged the man with a double murder in central Pennsylvania.

The Altoona Mirror reported Saturday that Nicholas Horner’s defense attorneys were trying to get some statements he made to the psychiatrist excluded from evidence when he stands trial in January.

But Blair County Judge Jolene Kopriva ruled Friday that the 31-year-old veteran wasn’t entitled to a defense attorney during the interview because he didn’t have one present when a defense expert interviewed him, either.

The defense expert says Horner was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and thereby unable to tell right from wrong when he robbed an Altoona Subway store in April 2009, during which a clerk and bystander were slain.