PLATTSBURGH -- The same day a judge ordered a psychiatric exam for Glen D. Race, who is charged with the May 10 shooting death of Darcy Manor, another man accused of murder in Mooers underwent the same kind of assessment.

David D. Couture, 28, of Mooers has been in custody since Nov. 2, 2006, charged with the homicide on Oct. 27 or 28 of Alphegina "Gina" Snide, 72.

In a police statement from an unrelated break-in a short time earlier, Couture had admitted he had stopped taking medication for mental illness and was depressed.

The progress of the case against Couture was delayed for a time, said Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie, because of "the defense seeking and locating a forensic psychiatrist" to conduct the mental assessment.

Alan Cardin, an uncle of Manor, had suspected the pursuit of an insanity defense was slowing Couture's case. As he awaited arraignment of his nephew's accused killer in Mooers Town Court last Thursday, Cardin expressed distress over the possibility the same could happen with Race, as the Nova Scotia man has a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

DEFENSE PLANNED

Joel E. Pink, the Halifax attorney who would represent Race should he return to Canada to face trial for the murder of two men there, has told the Press-Republican that, in Canada, he would bring a defense of "not criminally responsible" by reason of mental illness.

"It's unfortunate they play that game," Cardin said of employment of such a tactic.

Wylie has stated unequivocally that he will prosecute Race to the fullest possible extent of the law and that, in his view, the accused murderer undertook a progression of reasoned actions from the point he allegedly killed the men in the Halifax area, stole a car, escaped to the United States, ended Manor's life and then fled in the Mooers man's pickup truck to Texas.

CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

In response, Pink said the actions of a person in the midst of psychosis may be to that individual something different than perceived by others.

Such a person might believe, for example, he was fighting in the Vietnam War and killed someone he thought was the enemy.

In Canada, Pink said, criminal responsibility is assessed according to whether the person appreciates the quality and nature of his act and that that act was wrong.

Pink couldn't say what Race's justification of his actions might be.

"I don't know what the facts are," he said. "I haven't talked to (Race) at any great length yet."