ayres child molestation Custody Hearing Continued

[Original Post: 04/27/2012: DS]
On Friday April 27, 2012, there was a hearing for Criminal Case SC064366 relating to the incarceration status of william hamilton ayres who is currently in custody at Napa State Hospital after using an incompetency defense to avoid re-trial for his molestation of many young boys while he was alleging to provide them with psychiatric care. In such cases, where the perpetrator is dangerous, California law requires that the offender be held in a locked mental health facility for a minimum of six months. ayres has now been locked up at Napa State Hospital for six months, give or take a few days.


Details from the criminal case hearing on Friday, April 27, 2012:

Jonathan McDougall, the attorney for child molester william ayres, has filed motions relating to having ayres released from incarceration at Napa State Hospital. ayres was sent to Napa for a minimum of six months as required by law after he used a “Not competent to assist in his own defense” excuse to avoid re-trial for his molestation charges.

The molester is now asking to be released from Napa into outpatient care.

Solveig and william hamilton ayres were both present in the courtroom. Melissa McKowan represented the State in the matter today. There were four members of the public, and possibly one reporter present in the courtroom.

ayres was wearing an orange jumpsuit and sitting in a wheelchair. His appearance was somewhat more gaunt than in the past, but not unhealthily so. He now has a very long white beard, looking like a cross between Howard Hughes and Charles Manson. Ayres appeared alert and was engaged with conversation with his attorney.

At one point once everyone was in the courtroom, he said in a somewhat louder voice “I think it’s a setup anyway” but then went back to speaking quietly with his attorney. He then took a very good, long look around to see who was sitting in the courtroom.  The bailiff brought him a folded up orange jumpsuit shirt or pants, and told him “this is for later on.”

Before the judge came in, the bailiff was on the phone whispering to someone, and it appeared to the observers that he was talking about the members of the public present. Throughout the very brief proceedings, the bailiff appeared to be very worried about the members of the public sitting in the room, and he stood the whole time, looking prepared to smack some sense into all the rowdy spectators (three moms and one guy in pressed dockers and a pastel purple dress shirt.) To be fair, we DID whisper to each other twice before the judge came in. 

When the judge entered, he stated that he had received McDougall’s submitted information LATE YESTERDAY, and said that he had read “most” of it, although one of the three medical reports had not even be opened by the judge. His first order of business was to ask if both parties had discussed a date for the continuance, since obviously nobody was prepared. 

Not a word was said to McDougall about the inefficiency that his delay in submitting the paperwork has caused to proceedings. Every time I call the court, I sit through a long message bitching about how horribly they’ve had to cut court hours because of funding cuts, whine, whine, whine… THIS IS WHY THEY’RE CUTTING FUNDS – BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR TAXPAYER MONEY.

Everyone whined about availability of witnesses. (Doctors issuing medical reports, I assume.)

Since there were no witnesses present today, it was clear that they knew ahead of time that today was a wash. Maybe have some court clerks just get the schedule arranged and not even have the hearing?

Thursday, May 3, 2012 is the current day when everyone will be back from whatever else they’re doing and all of the witnesses for both sides will be available.

Some observations:


Sounds like this hearing might be longer than the average hearing. When McKowan talked about her witnesses, she said “the doctors from the ORIGINAL report” would not be available until Wednesday. I hope that McKowan has witnesses and or testimony to counter the NEW reports that were reportedly filed by Amanda Gregory for Wednesday’s conservatorship hearing.

There was discussion about where ayres was to be located between now and Thursday. McDougall stated that Napa was preferred, so they may have had ayres in county lockup or some other less desirable location (maybe home with Solveig.) They settled on transport back to Napa after the hearing.

The final item was that Scumbag McDougall asked to have his exhibits A,B, and C sealed until the next hearing. These were confidential medical reports. The judge expressed a momentary hesitation because these are “public proceedings” but after McDougall clarified that he was sealing only the reports, not his motion, the judge approved the motion to seal the records.

The state had no objection.

The hearing is continued until May 3, 2012 at 10AM PST.