Prosecutors learned Wednesday they will be allowed access to findings by a defense psychologist who spent hours interviewing the man accused in a November 2010 fatal shooting outside a Dunwoody day care.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams ordered Dr. Peter Thomas to transfer all records concerning the evaluation of Hemy Neuman by Thursday afternoon.
Thomas had interviewed Neuman before the Marietta engineer changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.
"We want to know what the results of the evaluation were considering the sanity of the defendant," DeKalb County Deputy District Attorney Don Geary said last week in court.
Thomas was not expected to be called to testify by the defense.
Geary argued that because Thomas was conducting an evaluation of Neuman, the defendant cannot claim confidentiality. The defense countered that attorney-client privilege supported its motion to quash the proposed review by prosecutors.
"[Thomas] met with us and discussed the case with us and discussed clearly privileged information," Neuman attorney Bob Rubin said last week in court, adding a ruling in favor of the prosecution would have a "chilling effect" on the defense use of experts for fear they'd do their clients "more harm than good."
Rubin declined comment Wednesday about Adams' ruling.
Neuman's trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 13. Neuman, through his attorneys, has acknowledged fatally shooting Rusty Sneiderman but maintains he was unable to differentiate between right and wrong at the time due to his mental illness.
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