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Hayes case to be heard
He wants release from the hospital
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Published: August 17, 2008
A hearing has been set to determine whether Michael Hayes, the man who killed four people in a shooting spree 20 years ago, should be released from a state psychiatric hospital.
Stuart Albright, a Superior Court judge from Guilford County, agreed to hear the case starting Aug. 25. Albright has been reading background for the hearing, said Phil Toelkes, the trial-court administrator.
Albright was the Guilford County district attorney from 2001 to 2005, when he was appointed to fill the judge seat left by his father, Douglas Albright.
The younger Albright is one of three Guilford judges currently hearing cases in Forsyth County.
The state-court system regularly rotates judges to their neighboring counties.
"I take the cases as they're assigned to me," Albright said last week when asked why he agreed to hear the case.
Albright said he couldn't answer further questions about a pending hearing.
Hayes, 44, was found not guilty by reason of insanity at his trial in 1989 for killing four people and wounding five others on July 17, 1988, on Old Salisbury Road.
A judge committed him to Dorothea Dix, a state psychiatric hospital in Raleigh, where he has remained since.
Hayes has the right to a hearing each year to determine if he remains mentally ill or is dangerous to others. If he can show that either condition is no longer true, then the law requires a judge to release him.
In recent years, Hayes has improved to the point that nine psychiatrists or psychologists testified at last year's hearing that he was neither a danger nor mentally ill.
He has passes that let him spend about a week away from the Dix campus unsupervised every month He also has passes to let him work in Wake County.
David Sipprell, an assistant district attorney assigned to argue against Hayes' release, called one psychiatrist to the witness stand at last year's hearing. The psychiatrist said he had some concerns about Hayes, but said he could be released with conditions.
North Carolina law allows a judge to release him only without conditions.
Judge Steve Balog agreed that Hayes remains a danger and ordered him recommitted. Hayes has a pending appeal of that ruling.
Hayes' attorney, Karl Knudsen, could not be reached last week.
Knudsen argued last year that the law was on Hayes' side. Only a judge unafraid of the political consequences of releasing him will do so, Knudsen said then.
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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