SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A clerical mix-up at San Diego Central Court sent the wrong man to a mental competency hearing, while the individual actually deemed incompetent was mistakenly arraigned.
Both men share the same full name and year of birth and were scheduled for court on July 22.
But on that day, the accused who had been declared mentally incompetent was brought in for arraignment, a proceeding he was legally unfit to attend.
Meanwhile, the other accused, who is competent, was mistakenly sent to mental health court.
Their identifying information was swapped and mistakenly applied to each other’s cases.
The error was not discovered until Friday, nearly three days later, when defense attorney Jeremy Eric Whiteley Fredericksen flagged the issue—an error that might have gone unnoticed for even longer had he not reviewed the case details and raised concerns in open court.
The accused previously declared incompetent had been evaluated by a court-approved mental health professional and was awaiting transfer to a state hospital to restore competency.
His attorney confirmed Friday that the mental health finding remained appropriate.
That same individual, the one deemed incompetent, had been arraigned in error on July 22.
He appeared confused in court and shook his head when prosecutors referenced visible neck wounds.
During that hearing, a prosecutor told the court, “I apologize to Mr. Garcia on the left, but when I looked at him the other day, on the neck, and I said, ‘You can see he’s cutting himself on the neck,’ and now I know he was shaking his head in disbelief. And now it makes perfect sense why.”
The confusion, the prosecutor said, was because the defendant he addressed was not the person actually facing the charges.
It was later revealed that the competent accused, the man who should have been arraigned, had previously been accused of threatening to slit his throat with a knife during a domestic violence incident.
Prosecutors said the threat occurred in front of law enforcement officers but was ultimately unsuccessful.
The fact that the incompetent individual had neck wounds, while the competent defendant had made suicidal threats involving a knife, only deepened the confusion and led to inaccurate assumptions in court.
Oddly enough, the competent defendant “did not object to the findings of the doctor,” according to the other public defender, and the court submitted to what it believed was a valid incompetency determination—allowing proceedings to continue as if he had been properly referred to mental health court.
On Friday, his attorney argued that he should not remain in custody due to what was described as a “system error.”
The defense entered a not guilty plea and requested supervised release, citing no prior failures to appear, strong local ties and the reduction of a previous felony to a misdemeanor.
Judge Melinda J. Lasater denied the request for release, citing the severity of the charges including violating a protective order and prior domestic violence convictions in 2011 and 2024.
One allegation includes holding a knife to a pregnant partner’s throat and threatening to harm himself during his arrest.
Although a statutory timeline typically begins once a defendant is found incompetent, the court stated that the determination of competency on July 22 was made in error and therefore did not trigger the legal clock.
“So both defendants on July 22 were in the wrong courts, and were not present for their actual hearings,” Judge Lasater stated.
“Which means we need to go back into both hearings right now.”
The court confirmed that the previous orders are now void due to the mistake.
