Convicted Homicide Defendant found Competent Following Alleged Hospital Escape

By D.C. Witness Staff - February 12, 2021
Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

During a Feb. 12 hearing that comes over five months after a convicted homicide defendant allegedly escaped St. Elizabeths Hospital, a DC Superior Court judge concluded that the defendant is competent in both the homicide case and the new one he has since picked up.

Judge Michael Ryan made the ruling after reviewing a Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) report, which states that defendant Bernard Coleman III is “intentionally producing symptoms of mental illness”.

In 2017, Coleman pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter while armed for shooting his father, Bernard Coleman Jr., in the back of the head while he was sleeping in March 2017. 

The 27-year-old was awaiting sentencing at the hospital when, on Oct. 3,  he allegedly escaped. Coleman was apprehended five days later after he and another suspect allegedly robbed a man, tasered him, stabbed his hands and left him handcuffed in a basement for three hours on the 400 block of Chaplin Street, SE. He’s now facing armed kidnapping charges.

Coleman was also found competent by a preliminary screening that was conducted after he was appended. But during a hearing last December, the defense, who had requested the screening, objected to its findings and requested a full competency exam. 

When the full examination found the defendant to be competent, defense attorneys Dominique Winters and Janai Reed said they will conduct an independent forensic exam and present the findings at the next observation hearing, which Judge Michael Ryan scheduled for March 26.

In the meantime,  Coleman will remain held at DC Jail.

Sarah Gebrengus wrote this article.