Shane James Jr., suspect in Dec. 5 shooting rampage, found incompetent to stand trial
Shane James Jr., the former U.S. Army officer accused of killing six people last year in a multi-county shooting rampage, has been deemed incompetent to stand trial due to his mental health. The decision means he might never see a courtroom.
James' fitness to stand trial took center stage at a pre-trial hearing in August where he asked the court if he could represent himself because he was offended that his lawyer, Russell Hunt Jr., had requested a mental competency assessment. State District Judge Cliff Brown told James that he would need to undergo an assessment before he could be considered for self-representation, anyway, and suggested that James continue to work with his lawyers in the meantime.
Brown signed an incompetency finding last Wednesday. The order calls for James to be placed in a state mental health facility with the goal of rehabilitation so that he can eventually stand trial. If he is not rehabilitated after 120 days then his incompetency standing would persist and he could remain in the hospital indefinitely.
But it could be a long time before James is even committed.
Kristen Dark, spokesperson for the Travis County sheriff's office, said there are currently 127 people in the Travis County jail who have been found incompetent to stand trial who are waiting to receive treatment at one of three state hospitals. But James is only eligible for placement in one of those facilities because he is considered a maximum security risk, meaning his placement will likely take longer.
Dark said the person who is at the top of the Travis County list also is a maximum security risk and has been waiting for 277 days to receive treatment.
The 120-day timeline won't start until James has been committed. The hospital must tell the court whether James has been sufficiently rehabilitated within 30 days of the end of that period. If James' competency is never restored, he could be forced to stay in the hospital until he dies. That's because a person can only be committed for as long as the maximum sentence they are facing if found guilty — and James is facing up to life in prison.
Hunt, James' defense attorney, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Travis County district attorney's office.
James has an established history of mental illness. His siblings told authorities that he had schizophrenia and continued to "mentally decompensate" after his discharge from the Army in 2015. In 2018, James also had a previous run-in with the Austin Police Department when he was placed in emergency detention because he was experiencing suicidal ideations.
James, 35, stands accused of killing his parents — Phyllis James, 55, and Shane James Sr., 56 — at their eastern Bexar County home before driving to Austin, where he fatally shot four more people — Emmanuel Pop Ba, 33; Sabrina Rahman, 25; Katherine Short, 56; and Lauren Short, 30 — and injured three others, including two police officers.
James currently faces seven charges in Travis County in connection to the shooting rampage: four capital murder charges, two attempted capital murder charges and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. That's in addition to capital murder charges in Bexar County and three misdemeanors, county jail records show.
