Once deemed too mentally ill for court, Windsor man now faces murder trial
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A medical science breakthrough has enabled a Windsor man to pull through mental illness and return to health.
But recovery also brings bad news for Raheem Washington — being healthy again means he’s now considered mentally fit enough to stand trial for murder.
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Washington was one of two men charged with first-degree murder and forcible confinement in the September 2018 slaying of a 37-year-old male in a downtown Windsor apartment building.
Co-accused Lamar Day pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in October 2019 and was sentenced to six years in prison in February 2020.
But following a rare “fitness hearing” in December 2021 before Superior Court Justice Brian Dube, 12 citizen jurors determined Washington was too mentally ill to stand trial.
Their decision wasn’t entirely surprising — two forensic psychiatrists testified during the three-day hearing that the accused would not be able to fully understand the legal proceedings in a murder trial. And lawyers for both the defence and prosecution stated the same in their closing addresses.
Although still only charged, and not convicted, in the killing of another man, Washington has remained in custody ever since his 2018 arrest, made shortly after police discovered a dead body with “obvious signs of trauma” in an apartment building unit in the 300 block of University Avenue East.
Washington, now 32, has been the subject of an Ontario Review Board detention order and, since that 2021 fitness hearing, housed in a secure setting at a provincial forensic mental health facility. Two years later, however, the review board sent the matter back to Superior Court and a judge recently determined the matter could now go to trial.
Following preliminary judicial proceedings, a Windsor assignment court judge last Friday scheduled a three-week murder trial for August 2026.
Local Crown attorney Eric Costaris, who is leading the prosecution’s case, told the Star this week that the Crown would be “withholding comment as the matter is set for trial.”
Defence lawyer Bobby Russon told the Star on Wednesday that neither he nor the Crown intend to argue that Washington is currently unfit. However, a day has been set aside a month before the 2026 trial for another “fitness hearing” to make sure the accused remains in a proper mental state to understand the legal proceedings against him.
Neither Costaris nor Russon would confirm, but a source told the Star that Washington’s mental health turnaround was the result of a recently developed European medical breakthrough.
And while Washington may no longer be mentally unfit — from a legal standpoint — if he’s eventually found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the 2018 homicide, the Criminal Code could still allow him to argue that was not the case at the time of the offence.
Costaris wouldn’t comment on Washington’s mental fitness at the time of the crime, and Russon would only say: “There is currently no NCR (not criminally responsible) challenge scheduled.”
Previous court-imposed interim publication bans prevent divulging the name of the victim or reporting testimony and evidence given during Day’s earlier court appearances, as well as from the 2021 fitness hearing held for Washington. Two judges made rulings that the reporting bans were necessary to preserve Washington’s right to a fair trial before a jury at any future date.
Jury trials are the standard when an accused is charged with murder, but there can be exceptions, and it’s not yet known whether Washington’s trial scheduled in 16 months could be judge-alone.
By then, he will have been in pre-trial custody for nearly eight years.
