Someone can be violent without committing crime. For example, if I regularly punched holes in the walls of my home or turned over furniture when enraged, I could be deemed violent, but that doesn’t mean I committed crime.

Again, we are left with very little information.

All we know is he has schizophrenia, and apparently he has been violent at least once in his life. Beyond that, we don’t really know why he was even before the judge.

Blame the reporter for sloppy writing.

Most reporters almost always leave out some pertinent facts or raise obvious questions in their articles.

Another key word is “deemed”. Deemed by who? Was he evaluated by an accredited professional?

And I disagree with you that violent means merely a tendency to violence. If one has demonstrated a so-called _tendency_ to violence, one had to have actually been violent to illustrate such a tendency.

If the accused never did anything violent, how would anyone know he had a tendency to violence?

Also, if the person’s mental state is such that he could not be found criminally guilty for his behavior, the prosecutor/police may have decided not to press any charges for a specific act, knowing that he would be found not guilty by reason of incompetance or whatever.

Therefore, the ’cause’ of him being before the judge may have been some kind of committment hearing (not necessarily a permanent or semi-permanent committment, but committed or ordered to a treatment facility) such that such a person doesn’t have to be found _guilty_ of anything, merely “deemed” whatever by an accredited psych professional.

But I blame the reporter for leaving the obvious question unanswered, not the judge or the criminal justice system. Something was left out. It usually always is.

Your query should be directed at the reporter. We can’t second guess him/her any better than you can.

(By the way, thanks for the links. I still get a few click-throughs from your blog and web site.)

Then why mention the person has schizophrenia?