GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WRN) — Murder and dismemberment suspect Taylor Schabusiness has been ruled competent to stand trial.
Judge Thomas Walsh scheduled the trial to begin July 21.
Christopher Froelich, Schabusiness’ attorney, argued that a competency report from November had become now “stale,” and requested an updated report.
Walsh, however, disagreed, saying Schabusiness’ attorneys have not presented any evidence contrary to others who have deemed her competent to stand trial.
Schabusiness, 25, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and third-degree sexual assault for allegedly attacking Shad Thyrion last year. She has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Separate the so-called insanity plea is the issue of if she is competent to stand trial. That refers to the defendant’s ability to understand the court proceedings and assist in their own defense. The issue of her competency still hasn’t been decided — which was one of the reasons the March 6 trial date was postponed.
A competency report commissioned by prosecutors completed last fall deemed Schabusiness competent to stand trial.
However, in a motion filed Thursday, defense attorney Christopher Froelich asked for the November report to be replaced or updated by the same doctor.
“The current report is approximately 4-months old and the defense believes it is stale. Attorney Froelich never had an opportunity to confer with Dr. Seipel prior to the completion of his evaluation as he was not the attorney-of-record at the time,” the motion states.
He also cites the attack on the previous attorney as a reason for another report.
“The undersigned counsel has concerns about the defendant’s alleged behavior and believes that the assigned psychiatrist should re-evaluate the defendant taking into consideration the apparent outburst in the courtroom on or about February 14, 2023. The defense argues that the alleged incident in the courtroom with prior counsel was a serious emotional outburst that gives rise to the need for an additional evaluation of the defendant. The defendant ’s alleged behavior was highly unusual and defense counsel has concerns that the defendant may have been suffering from a mental breakdown or other mental defect,” the motion stated.
Walsh declined the request, however.
“It’s the view of this court that I’m not going to order another competency evaluation or a supplemental competency evaluation,” he said in court Friday. “As I’ve indicated to Mr. Froelich before and I’ll indicate again he and his client always have a right to bring forth this issue, but, frankly, the court believes if they come forth with this issue because it’s been brought forward a couple of times that they would need to have something to demonstrate to the court that there is reason to keep pursuing it.”
