Judge to Allow Brain Test to Aid Salcido Defense

A Sonoma County judge has cleared the way for accused mass murderer Ramon Salcido to travel to UC Irvine this month for a state-of-the-art brain scan that could aid his defense--if the university will accept him.

Superior Court Judge R. Bryan Jamar on Tuesday denied a motion by Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter Bummerts that Salcido not be removed from the Sonoma County jail without a special court hearing. Bummerts had warned that flying Salcido to Southern California could be a security risk.

However, Salcido’s defense attorney, Public Defender Marteen Miller, said Wednesday he believes a positron emission tomography (PET) scan, a brain imaging technique that can detect subtle brain malfunctions, could reveal that Salcido has suffered organic brain damage.

The 28-year-old winery worker could face the death penalty if convicted of killing seven people--two of his three daughters, his wife, mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law and his boss--in an April 14 shooting rampage. The killings shocked Sonoma County and prompted a manhunt that ended with Salcido’s capture in Mexico.

A finding of brain damage might help persuade a jury that Salcido lacked the willfulness and premeditation required for a first-degree murder conviction or sway a judge toward leniency if Salcido is convicted, Miller said.

The UC Irvine Brain Imaging Center, however, has not decided yet whether to accept Salcido as a patient, according to Miller.

The center’s director, Dr. Monte R. Buchsbaum, “indicated he didn’t want to use this as a fishing expedition to try to find something (abnormal),” Miller said.

“He wanted some definitive data that there is some brain dysfunction, then he would go in and explore it further,” Miller said.

Buchsbaum was out of the country and could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Miller said he has evidence that Salcido may have suffered brain damage. He said the evidence consisted of an electroencephalogram, or EEG, showing some disturbance in the right temporal lobe and the fact that Salcido had suffered injuries, including electrical shock, as a child.

UCI’s PET scanner has already been used by defense attorneys in two other trials. In 1985, Buchsbaum performed a PET scan on mass murderer Barry Wayne McNamara, who later told psychiatrists that he had been told to kill his family by voices on TV. The psychiatrist testified that McNamara’s PET scan was consistent with other testimony that the defendant was schizophrenic.

Prosecutor Bummerts, however, said defense attorneys will have “a long row to hoe” in making such claims for Salcido.

“We have a statement from him that to me is clear that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he had a purpose and that he tried to succeed in accomplishing his purpose” by the shootings, Bummerts said. “Proving this claim now that it wasn’t premeditated is going to be a difficult proposition.”

Meanwhile, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department is preparing to keep Salcido under tight wraps if he makes the trip to Irvine. Sgt. Norm Hardin said even the date of the PET scan will be kept secret.

Although Salcido has not received death threats, he is being held under maximum security and in complete isolation, Hardin said.

“It’s primarily because of the larger-than-normal amount of notoriety that this case has received,” he said. “This isn’t the normal run-of-the-mill murder.

“We do want to protect Ramon to make sure he has the day in court that the Constitution allows him.”