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Judge delays plea ruling in school stabbings

A judge is holding off making a decision on whether a teen can plead guilty but mentally ill to stabbing 20 fellow students and a security guard at his high school.
The judge said Monday he wants Westmoreland County prosecutors and the attorney for 19-year-old Alex Hribal to file written arguments in the next month-and-a-half over whether he should accept the plea.

PITTSBURGH — Hribal's lawyer argues the defendant was too mentally ill to appreciate the wrongfulness of his behavior when he stabbed the victims at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville.

"He needs help. You can't just warehouse a young man like Alex. He needs to have some help and go to a hospital," Hribal’s attorney Pat Thomassey said.  
But prosecutors say Hribal knew right from wrong and that the judge should reject the guilty but mentally ill plea.

Hribal turned 19 last month, but was just 16 during the April 2014 rampage.

Three mental health doctors testified for the defense and said Hribal has psychotic depression, and was playing out a fantasy when he went on the mass stabbing.
Hribal wrote in a manifest days before the attack that he felt he was a prophet for the two students that orchestrated the Columbine attack.
If the judge accepts the plea, Hribal could spend part of his sentence in a mental hospital until doctors determine he is well, and then finish the sentence in prison.

Hribal is charged with 21 counts each of attempted homicide and aggravated assault and a school weapons violation. 

Associated Press

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