@meghannmcuniff: An Ohio prosecutor acknowledged in her closing argument today that a man who ran over a sheriff's deputy with his car has a "severe mental disease" but argued state law doesn't support his insanity defense because he knew his actions were wrong. Rodney Hinton Jr. last experienced a psychotic episode in 2023 when he killed Larry Henderson, a deputy with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, on May 2, 2025, said Katie Burroughs, an assistant prosecutor in Hamilton County. "His severe mental disease may well be tied to this trigger. It may cause him to be impulsive, make poor decisions, and whose acute grief and emotional stress that he was feeling that day may have made it worse. But impulsive is not insane. He made a choice, knowing it was wrong," Burroughs said. "Angry. Grieving. Impulsive. Ohio law says plainly: the inability to control one's behavior — an irresistible impulse — is not a legal defense. Even if a severe mental disease completely stripped a person of their ability to stop themselves from acting, he is still legally sane if he knew the act was wrong. It is that narrow. It is that strict," she continued. "The judge is going to tell you what doesn't count: Motive, impulse, emotional grief, rage at the loss of your firstborn child-those are not reasons for not guilty by reason of insanity. In Ohio, the question is not whether he could control himself; it's whether he knew. And grief does not excuse taking another life. Why versus wrongfulness. There's a difference," Burroughs said. Hinton wanting to kill a policeman because a policeman killed his son "is not a delusion disconnected from reality," she said. "That is a motive that makes terrible human sense, and a man acting on that motive knows exactly what he is doing, and that it's wrong. Every one of his faculties was working that day. Nothing showed acute symptoms of his mental disease. So you have to ask yourself, which explanation makes sense? We're back to common sense. Reason and common sense," she said. Hinton, 40, is accused of intentionally hitting and killing Deputy Larry Henderson of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office with his car on May 2, 2025, after his 18-year-old son was fatally shot by a Cincinnati police officer during a stolen car investigation. Henderson was not involved in the son’s shooting and had no connection to the officer other than being law enforcement officials in the same region. Hinton for the first time saw body-camera footage of his son's shooting hours before prosecutors say he targeted Henderson as Henderson directed traffic for the University of Cincinnati. #law #court #crime

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Tuesday 20 October 2026 21:14:05 GMT