DC Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ruled that a homicide defendant was incompetent to stand trial due to a history of schizophrenia and severe cognitive deficits in an Aug. 11 hearing.
Daniel Simon, 44, is charged with second-degree murder while armed and carrying a pistol without a license outside a home or business for allegedly beating 52-year-old Michael Jones on Jan. 4, 2023 on the 200 block of 15th Street, NW. According to court documents, Jones was lying on the street when he sustained three blows from what appeared to be a metal pole and died.
Simon has suffered from a “severe, longstanding illness” for nearly the past 20 years, according to Judge Edelman. He said Simon was involuntarily committed to mental health treatment around the age of 25. When arrested for public drinking and assaulting a police officer in 2011, Simon was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and found incompetent to stand trial.
Under the DC Code, a defendant cannot be tried unless he has a factual and rational understanding of the proceedings against him, as well as a sufficient ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding.
After his arrest for Jones’ murder, a doctor at the DC Jail described Simon as “actively psychotic,” “hostile and aggressive,” and disheveled. Judge Edelman said Simon smeared his cell with feces and spoke to hallucinations.
Simon was admitted to Saint Elizabeths Hospital, DC’s psychiatric institution, on Feb. 22, 2023. After beginning medication, a Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) doctor reported some improvement in Simon’s symptoms.
Judge Edelman said Simon became calmer and responded less to internal stimuli in June 2023, but he expressed delusions of believing he had no charges against him or that his case was a mistake of stolen identity.
According to DBH reports, while Simon’s positive symptoms of schizophrenia, like aggression and hallucinations, lessened, his negative symptoms, such as being “socially withdrawn” and “selectively mute,” persisted.
In his current presentation, the DBH doctor said Simon had restored competence, as he no longer expressed delusions about the case against him being fake and could discuss aspects of his charges. The defense medical experts, however, found Simon to be psychotic, suffering from a “poverty of rational thought,” and incompetent to stand trial.
The defense’s neuropsychiatrist expert conducted a clinical interview of Simon and determined he was “unrestorably incompetent.” According to the expert’s evaluation, Simon has an IQ of 58, placing him in the lowest 0.3 percentile of adults, and “profound neurocognitive deficits.”
The DBH doctor reported that Simon had an adequate level of legal knowledge to understand his proceedings in January 2026. According to Judge Edelman, when asked what the role of an attorney is, Simon gave answers like “to speak for me” or “to help me out,” and he explained the role of a prosecutor as “to be against me.”
Judge Edelman said he “finds it very difficult to conclude” that Simon’s “short and simplistic” responses demonstrate a factual understanding of court procedures. He emphasized that the DBH doctor frequently had to prompt Simon to provide these “rudimentary” answers and that there is a difference between identifying courtroom personnel and actually understanding their role in the criminal process.
The DBH doctor said Simon’s minimal responses were due to a “lack of effort,” while the defense’s experts attributed Simon’s confusion about legal proceedings to cognitive deficits, despite his making an effort. Judge Edelman said longstanding schizophrenia and neurocognitive deficits are a “much more convincing explanation” for Simon’s “clipped” responses.
The DBH doctor’s assessment of whether Simon’s responses reflected a factual understanding of his proceedings was not consistent over time, according to Judge Edelman. He found the doctor held Simon as competent in later evaluations for responses that were “overwhelmingly similar” to what the doctor had called inadequate earlier.
“His answers didn’t change. What changed was her analysis,” explained Judge Edelman.
In light of Simon’s long history of schizophrenia and untreatable neurocognitive deficits, Judge Edelman ruled that Simon is incompetent to stand trial and will not attain competence in the foreseeable future. Simon’s treatment will be continued for 30 days while the prosecution decides next steps.
Parties are slated to reconvene on Sept. 11.
