A Thousand Oaks girl who confronted the prospect of life in jail if convicted of the stabbing dying of a person she was relationship was sentenced Tuesday to 2 years probation and 100 hours of neighborhood service after arguing that she was on a cannabis-induced psychosis in the course of the killing.
Authorities responded to a Thousand Oaks house on Could 27, 2018, and located that Bryn Spejcher, 32, had stabbed Chad O’Melia, 26, dozens of instances, then turned the knife on herself and her canine. She was arrested on suspicion of homicide and charged with that offense.
However in a unprecedented flip of occasions final yr, a prosecutor’s medical professional agreed with a protection professional for Spejcher that the habits was the results of cannabis-induced psychosis, which she suffered after taking hits from the sufferer’s bong.
The professional carried out what prosecutors characterised as exams that confirmed she was not exaggerating or faking her habits that day. Prosecutors opted to cut back the cost to involuntary manslaughter with a sequence of enhancements.
That call got here after psychologist Kris Mohandie, a marketing consultant for regulation enforcement, examined Spejcher, her interviews with regulation enforcement and police body-camera footage and produced a 37-page report that concluded she had misplaced contact with actuality attributable to extremely potent marijuana.
After 4 hours of deliberation, a jury in December discovered her responsible of involuntary manslaughter — a cost that may carry a four-year jail sentence.
Ventura County Superior Court docket Choose David Worley, nonetheless, opted to condemn her to 100 hours of neighborhood service within the type of educating others on marijuana-induced psychosis and two years of formal probation.
Spejcher had been relationship O’Melia for a few weeks when she went to the house. Shortly after taking a second hit from a bong, Spejcher started “listening to and seeing issues that weren’t there” and believing she was useless, and that she needed to stab O’Melia as a way to convey herself again to life, in line with the district lawyer’s workplace.
In her closing assertion, Spejcher advised the decide, “I want I may return in time and forestall this tragedy from occurring.
“I want I had recognized extra in regards to the risks of marijuana,” she added. “Had I recognized, I’d by no means have smoked it that evening or in any respect.”
Her lawyer Michael Goldstein lauded the ruling.
“As we speak, Ventura Superior Court docket Choose did the best factor and imposed a sentence that was honest and precisely mirrored Ms. Spejcher’s conduct and acknowledged that it was the contents of the marijuana she was provided that was the only real explanation for her psychotic breakdown,” he stated. “It was clear that she had no management of her colleges and by no means meant to trigger any hurt. The entire medical consultants agreed, together with the professional referred to as by the district lawyer’s workplace.”
