Another twist has come up in the case of the assassination of Texas sheriff’s deputy Darren Goforth. The suspect in the case was reportedly “found to be mentally incompetent” in 2012 when he was charged in a felony assault case. This is more complicated than it first appears from the headlines, but there was definitely trouble brewing around this guy for a while now. (CNN)

The suspect in the slaying of Texas deputy Darren Goforth was found mentally incompetent in 2012 to stand trial on a felony assault charge, a prosecutor said Monday.

About three years ago, [the suspect] was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after fighting a man at an Austin homeless shelter over the television remote control, said Joe Frederick, a prosecutor in Travis County, Texas.

Miles kicked and punched the victim, injuring his face, back and head, Frederick said. The deadly weapon used in the assault was his hands.

The defense for the suspect will no doubt be bringing this into the case to bolster his chances. During an interview on CNN today the attorney told one of the anchors that he was planning to enter a preliminary not guilty plea at the next hearing, though how that is structured may depend on whether or not he’s going to try to claim that his client is incompetent to stand trial.

The complications for him come from the details of that earlier case. It seems that while he was initially declared “incompetent” and sent to a mental facility, several months later he was declared to be competent and fit to stand trial. It was only the fact that they couldn’t locate his victim that caused them to eventually abandon the case and set him loose. I’m sure the defense will try to use that to muddy the waters, but if he’s already been found competent once it may be a lot tougher to take a second bite at that apple. However, the description provided by those in court describe the defendant as remaining silent for nearly the entire procedure and “looking confused.” Whether he was coached to act that way as part of a planned defense remains to be seen. (But he certainly seemed pretty competent when he was allegedly murdering Deputy Goforth.)

Gun control advocates will likely bring this up as a question of how he obtained a weapon if he was already locked up on mental health issues and was involved in a felony assault. But if he was examined at length and determined to be competent and the charges against him were dismissed, I don’t know if that would show up during a background check or disqualify him for a gun purchase. More on that to come, I’m sure.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to set this story aside since there was another cop shot and killed today, but we’ll have more on that later. It’s just a bad week all the way around.