Photo: Casey Dillan Lawson
A 20-year-old rural Mountain Home man, who is alleged to have assaulted his mother, leaving her with serious injuries, made a second unsuccessful try at entering a guilty plea to his charges during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
In late September, the plea taking came off the rails when Casey Dillan Lawson could not stop laughing as the facts behind his charges were read.
According to court records, Lawson has dealt with significant mental health issues for some time.
The original agreement, worked out by prosecutors and defense attorney Mark Cooper, called for Lawson to receive a six-year prison sentence with five suspended and one to serve.
On Thursday, a subdued Lawson first appeared on video hookup from the Baxter County Detention Center but had problems hearing and understanding what was being said to him. He was brought to the court complex, but things did not go much better in the person-to-person setting. His attorney, Mark Cooper, stepped in at one point and told Lawson the document being discussed was the same one they had talked about at length and which he had signed.
But, Lawson continued to seem disconnected with the process and unable to comprehend what was being asked of him.
Finally, Circuit Judge John Putman gave up and ordered Lawson to reappear Jan. 28 to make another try at getting the plea taking process completed.
During the aborted attempt at taking the plea in September, as Circuit Judge Gordon Webb went over the facts in the case, Lawson began to laugh. At one point, Judge Webb asked the defendant if he was pleading guilty to hitting or striking his mother. Lawson continued to laugh.
“That really sounds horrible,” Lawson said at one point. When he was told of the second-degree domestic battery charge filed against him, he said he “didn’t understand what that means.”
During the initial run at getting the plea taken, Cooper told his client at one time during the lengthy process to “straighten up,” but Lawson seemed lost in his own world.
Judge Webb asked Lawson if he could explain what he found so laughable, and he said something that had been said in court “just sounded funny.” He compared it to a certain rapper’s song lyrics.
The state moved to withdraw the plea offer. Cooper asked the court not to grant the motion. “We have worked very hard on this agreement, to get to the point where we are, and I would hate to have it all set aside.”
Judge Webb granted the motion, saying Lawson’s behavior “could only be described as irrational, and I am not going to accept the plea at this time.”
Court records indicate Lawson has been committed to stays in mental treatment centers based on his behavior. He was described as suffering “acute psychosis.”
According to court records, Lawson has told mental health professionals he “hears voices all the time,” and that the voices represented “the devil.”
He has made a number of suicide attempts.
In June and July 2018, he was reported to have tried to kill himself three times in five weeks. It was alleged he had slashed his wrist, swallowed motor oil and ingested 40 Thorazine pills.
According to the manufacturer, Thorazine is used to treat certain mental and mood disorders and can reduce aggressive behavior and the desire to hurt oneself.
Lawson is reported to have once said God had told him to kill himself so he could go to heaven. He has said he is ready to go to “a place of peace.”
Lawson was arrested in early January last year, after a Baxter County deputy interviewed his then 56-year-old mother at Baxter Regional Medical Center.
The mother reported she had been in the kitchen of her residence located along County road 1420 talking with her son. She said Lawson appeared to be having “some type of episode,” and she was trying to calm him down.
The victim said she grabbed the young man’s shirt at one point and that was the last thing she remembered.
Another son living at the residence told investigator he heard a “commotion” and when he looked in the kitchen, he saw his mother lying on the floor unconscious.
He said his brother fled the residence. Lawson was located, arrested and booked into the Baxter County Detention Center Jan. 4 and has been an inmate there for 12 months and 10 days, as of Thursday.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the second son was able to wake his mother and transport her to BRMC.
After arriving at the hospital, it was determined the woman’s injuries were very serious. She was reported to have a “brain bleed” and broken jaw.
The victim was airlifted to a hospital in Springfield, where she was placed in the intensive care unit.
Lawson is charged with second-degree domestic battery. His bond is set at $15,000.
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