Mohammed Taheri-azar, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate charged with attempting to run over students last spring, said at a pretrial hearing last week that he will plead not guilty and accept a public defense attorney to represent him.
Immediately after the March 3 incident, Taheri-azar said he ran a rented Jeep Grand Cherokee through the Pit on UNC's campus to avenge the deaths of Muslims all over the world.
He told reporters and the judge at a pretrial hearing in June that he planned to plead guilty. But James Williams, Taheri-azar's attorney, said that his client has come to a different conclusion.
"Today he is in a better position to relate to circumstances in a more rational way than he was a few months ago," Williams said, citing the recent report of a psychologist that evaluated Taheri-azar as competent.
The defendant is charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to inflict serious injury.
This psychologist's report, however, might not preclude the defense from using a mental-health argument in the arraignment, which begins Dec. 12.
Officially, there has not been a formal motion filed asking the court to examine Taheri-azar's competency, but the defense has been watching his psychiatric health closely in the last few months.
"At this particular moment he appears to be competent, but this is subject to change," Williams said. When asked specifically why Taheri-azar decided to plead guilty, Williams declined to speculate.
Students at UNC said they are still upset about the attempted murders, noting the attack drastically changed the campus dynamic last spring.
UNC sophomore Christine White noted that many students were outraged at Taheri-azar's decision to plead not guilty.
"I don't understand how he could possibly say that he did not try to run over those people," she said.
"He admitted it right after it happened," White added.
There has been no tension, however, between Muslim students and others on campus, White said, adding that it seems that UNC has come together in the face of the tragedy.
"Most people [at UNC] can separate the actions of this individual from an entire group of students who happen to share his religion," she said.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Carl Fox said he was relieved that Taheri-azar decided to accept the representation, because it would lead to a fairer trial. He said Taheri-azar's decision to plead not guilty and to have Williams as his lawyer can only help his case.
"His change of heart will never be brought up or affect the trial," Fox said.
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