Nancy Gonzalez (
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He’s smart enough to face lethal injection.
Convicted cop killer Ronell Wilson is not mentally impaired — and because of that a new jury will decide whether he is put to death or gets life behind bars, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled today.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis rejected claims by Wilson’s lawyers that his IQ was so low that it would be unconstitutional to execute him for the 2003 execution-style murders of NYPD Dets. Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin on Staten Island.
EXCLUSIVE: COP-KILLER HAD BABY FEVER
“The court holds that Wilson is not mentally retarded, and was not mentally retarded at the time of the crime,” Garaufis wrote of the killer — who is expecting his first child next month after an illicit relationship with a jail guard behind bars.
The US Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for convicts deemed “mentally retarded.”
But Garaufis said that while seven out of eight intelligence tests that Wilson has taken over the years show a lower-than-average IQ, they do not fall below an IQ of 70 — the top end of mental impairment.
Garaufis ordered that a new jury begin considering the so-called penalty phase for Wilson on May 20 in Brooklyn federal court. He said that “due to the extraordinary pre-trial publicity on this case,” a whopping 2,000 jurors will complete screening questionnaires over a five-day period beginning April 3 and begin being questioned by lawyers April 17.
Garaufis’ dramatic ruling came two days after Brooklyn federal prison guard Nancy Gonzalez, 29, was arrested for secretly having sex with Wilson, 30, while he was locked up there — leaving her eight months pregnant.
“I applaud the judge’s decision,” said Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino. “Recent news of Wilson fathering a child in prison tells us he is irresponsible and reckless, but more than competent to face the death penalty.”
The gang member Wilson shot Andrews and Nemorin in a car at point-blank range when they were working an undercover gun buy-and-bust operation.
He was convicted of their slayings at a 2007 federal trial, and sentenced to death by the same jury during a separate penalty phase. He was the first New York State resident since 1954 to face a federal death sentence.
But in 2010, the 2nd Circuit appeals court tossed out Wilson’s sentence. In a 2-1 vote, appeals judges said a prosecutor was wrong to argue that jurors should not believe Wilson’s remorse and acceptance of responsibility for the killings during the penalty phase because he failed to plead guilty to the crime, and to take the witness stand at trial. The appellate court said those claims undercut Wilson’s constitutional rights to a jury trial and to not incriminate himself.
After that ruling, Wilson’s lawyers then argued to Garaufis that Wilson should not face another possible death sentence because he was mentally retarded.
In December, Garaufis heard evidence from their expert witnesses, and prosecutors’ own experts who disputed that claim, among them Raymond Patterson, a psychiatrist who has treated President Ronald Reagan’s would-be killer John Hinkley.
Patterson testified that Wilson was not mentally retarded, noting that he “reads and memorizes quotations,” displays a sense of humor, and possesses an ability to understand abstract concepts that “was actually quite good.”
Patterson diagnosed Wilson as having “anti-social personality disorder with narcissistic features,” but said he was bright enough to make choices about how to lead his life.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona
Judge Nicholas Garaufis written opinion on Ronell Wilson by New York Post
dan.mangan@nypost.com