OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – The Nebraska Supreme Court has affirmed the murder conviction of a Lincoln man who bludgeoned his mother to death with an ax.
Matthew Fox had argued he shouldn’t have been declared competent to stand trial because he couldn’t bear to discuss his case.
The court said in a ruling released Friday that Fox’s decision not to discuss his mother’s death with his lawyers didn’t mean he wasn’t competent.
Fox was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for first-degree murder in his mother’s death. Prosecutors say Matthew Fox, who was 19 at the time, hit his mother with an ax 14 times in October 2008.
He was found incompetent to stand trial twice and spent more than a year in treatment before the lower court found him competent in 2010.