Baltimore man who attacked two Asian Americans with cinder block pleads not criminally responsible

The Baltimore man who hit two Asian American women with a cinder block inside a liquor store has entered a not criminally responsible plea.

His plea: Darryl Doles, the 50-year-old assailant who is facing several charges including attempted murder, made the plea through his defense attorney at the Baltimore City Circuit Court on Thursday, according to CBS Baltimore.

Doles was accused of attacking three separate Asian-owned liquor stores on May 2.
He first attacked the security guard of Linden Discount Liquors with a piece of lumber after being denied service for not wearing a mask.
Doles then went to the second store, where he “kicked a display window display and said f*ck Chinese,” according to Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby.
The third store he went to was Wonder Land Liquors. He vandalized the business and was caught on surveillance camera assaulting two Asian American women with a cinder block.
If convicted of all the charges placed on him, he could face two life sentences with an additional 65 years in prison.

About the plea: Maryland is one of the few U.S. states that allow “for pleading insanity [as a criminal defense] based on a broader range of mental diseases or defects than in other jurisdictions,” Dr. David Gray, a law professor at the University of Maryland’s law school, told the Capital Gazette.

Like New York, Maryland also follows the Model Penal Code Test, one of the four legal standards that some states use as criteria for an insanity defense plea, as mentioned in FindLaw. Other legal standards include the M’Naghten Rule, the Irresistible Impulse Test and the Durham Rule.
Under the rule, the defense must prove that the defendant was unable to understand the illegality of their actions due to mental illnesses or disabilities for them to be considered not criminally responsible.
However, drug consumption, past criminal records and sociopathy have reportedly been excluded from the considered list of insanity defenses.
If found guilty and criminally not responsible, the defendant would then be handed over to the health department and be admitted to a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital.

Featured Image via WJZ

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