Man accused of murdering immigrant pleads insanity

MESA, Ariz. -- Americans were still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when shots rang out on a street corner in this Phoenix suburb a few days later, leaving an Indian immigrant dead.

Balbir Singh Sodhi was neither Muslim nor from the Middle East, as the terrorist hijackers had been. Yet authorities say the gas station owner was targeted days after the attacks because he wore a turban and beard as part of his Sikh faith.

Now a jury will be asked to consider whether the alleged gunman in the Sept. 15, 2001, killing, Frank Silva Roque, committed a racially motivated hate crime, or whether a mental illness was to blame. Jury selection in the capital murder case is scheduled to begin Monday.

Sodhi's family believes the first argument is the truth. "As far as I'm concerned, my brother is a victim of 9-11," said Sodhi's brother, Lakhwinder "Rana" Singh Sodhi.

Balbir Sodhi had been outside his gas station when authorities say Roque drove up and shot him. Prosecutors say Roque later shot at a Lebanese-American clerk at another gas station and fired into the home of a family of Afghan descent. No one else was hurt.

The shootings rocked the Phoenix area and had repercussions far beyond. News of Sodhi's death touched off protests in his homeland and prompted India's prime minister to call President Bush. About 3,000 people attended a memorial service for Sodhi the week after the shootings.

Authorities have never directly said the shootings were in retaliation for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, but they have characterized them as hate crimes.

"Mr. Sodhi was apparently killed for no other reason than because he was dark-skinned, bearded and wore a turban. He was killed because of hate," Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said the day he filed the charges against Roque.

Police reports also quoted Roque as saying "I'm a patriot" and that he was "standing up for his brothers and sisters" in New York after his arrest on the day of the shootings.

Schizophrenia

Roque's public defenders, Daniel Patterson and Robert Stein, plan to present a "guilty except insane" defense.

As such, they will concede the basic facts of the case but are expected to argue that undiagnosed schizophrenia -- not racial prejudice -- triggered Roque's actions.

If the jury agrees, he wouldn't be subject to the death penalty that prosecutors are seeking. But he would be confined to a state hospital until doctors determine he is no longer a threat.

If the jury finds Roque guilty, mental illness could still be used as a factor in sparing him from the death penalty, Stein said.

Roque was found competent to stand trial. However, Patterson said his client only appears fit now because he's taking an anti-psychosis drug.

"The witnesses all agree that he was behaving bizarrely ... not explained by anger or alcohol abuse," Patterson said. "He was incoherent, talking gibberish."

Patterson said Roque heard voices he thought were God. He said a doctor will testify that his client's mental illness made him believe he was "doing God's bidding."

Assistant Attorney General Joseph Maziarz, who helped work on a draft of the state's guilty except insane statute, called it a "defense of desperation" and said he thinks it will be a hard sell.

"They have to prove that (Roque) did not know the act was wrong in the moral sense, not just criminally wrong," said Maziarz, who isn't involved in the case. "I don't know how they get around the wrongness issue."