Choose guidelines Colorado voting machine tampering suspect is incompetent, can not proceed with courtroom proceedingsYesterday

A person accused of tampering with a voting machine throughout Colorado’s major election is mentally incompetent and can’t proceed with courtroom proceedings, a choose dominated Thursday.

On the request of Richard Patton’s lawyer and prosecutors, Choose William Alexander additionally ordered that Patton endure outpatient psychological well being therapy in hopes of creating him properly sufficient so he will be prosecuted.

The choose’s ruling adopted an analysis by an skilled who discovered that Patton was mentally incompetent. To be thought of legally competent to proceed, folks accused of crimes have to be deemed in a position to perceive proceedings and assist in their very own protection by having the ability to talk with their legal professionals.

Patton’s lawyer had requested the analysis however no particulars about why have been launched. Patton has not been requested to enter a plea but and the case towards him won’t resume till he’s discovered to be competent.

Patton was arrested Nov. 3 and later charged with tampering with voting tools, which state lawmakers this 12 months made a felony punishable by as much as three years in jail. It was previously a misdemeanor offense with a penalty of as much as 364 days in jail.

In accordance with his arrest affidavit, Patton confirmed as much as vote in individual on the final day of the first election, June 28. He made some ballot employees nervous after asking about what sort of safety there was on the voting middle due to threats that had been made towards election employees. An election employee escorted Patton to a voting machine, confirmed him use it, and he was in a position to make use of it to fill out a poll and print out a marked paper poll to solid, investigators stated.

After Patton voted, an individual who went to wash the voting machine found an error message saying {that a} USB machine had been detected, in keeping with the affidavit. Different election employees stated the safety seal on the machine was both broken or had been tampered with and a USB port pulled out, it stated.

Patton denied any wrongdoing in an interview with The Pueblo Chieftain in November. He stated he requested assist from an election employee when he voted as a result of he’s dyslexic and accused the employee of inserting one thing into the machine.