Franklin County Hall of Justice is a central legal setting in the proceedings against William Stanley Milligan. In its courtrooms, the dispute over whether he could participate in his defense gave way to a trial based on agreed medical evidence, culminating in a finding that he was not guilty by reason of insanity on counts two through ten. The building also frames smaller but telling moments in which legal procedure and Milligan’s changing public image intersect.

Legal Proceedings and Examination

On January 19, 1978, Judy Stevenson and Gary Schweickart presented a psychological report to Judge Jay Flowers as evidence that Milligan could not assist in his own defense. Flowers directed the Southwest Community Mental Health Center to assign its forensic psychiatry unit to examine him. The order led to a dispute over whether statements Milligan might make during that examination could later be used against him. The lawyers and prosecutors reached a compromise: the prosecution could question him about incriminating statements only if he took the stand. The episode reflects the court’s initial concern with his present capacity to participate in the case, distinct from the later question of his mental state when the offenses occurred.

The building’s most consequential courtroom proceedings came when the parties agreed not to call witnesses and instead submitted the facts as stipulations. The defense did not contest the charges or deny that Milligan had committed the charged crimes, apart from the first count of sexual assault, but entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. This procedure made the agreed medical evidence, rather than witness testimony, the basis for the judge’s decision.

The Trial and Ruling

Judge Flowers dismissed the first rape count, citing the lack of corroborating evidence and the absence of a similar modus operandi. He then considered the remaining counts on the stipulated psychiatric evidence. The doctors’ evidence, as summarized by the judge, established that Milligan was mentally ill when the offenses occurred, could not distinguish right from wrong, and could not refrain from the acts. With no contrary evidence before him, Flowers found Milligan not guilty by reason of insanity on counts two through ten.

The ruling placed Milligan under the authority of the Probate Court of Franklin County. The Hall of Justice thus marks both the resolution of the criminal case and its transition into a separate legal process governing his care and custody. The verdict did not amount to a finding that the alleged offenses had not occurred; it determined that, on the evidence presented, Milligan’s mental illness prevented criminal responsibility for the counts adjudicated.

The Seventh Floor and the Courtroom

On the seventh floor, Stevenson and Schweickart joined Milligan after he had been escorted through the courthouse. They noticed that his mustache was gone. Stevenson remarked that he looked more clean-cut, while Schweickart sensed that something was wrong but was interrupted when an officer took Milligan away at the sheriff’s direction. The abrupt diversion, despite the lawyers’ expectation that the trial was taking place on that floor, briefly unsettled the ordinary sequence of court procedure.

When Milligan was subsequently led into the courtroom, sketch artists watched him and then erased the mustache from their drawings. Schweickart announced that both sides had agreed to proceed without witnesses and to read the stipulated facts into the record. In this setting, the erased feature is a concrete reminder that the courtroom presented Milligan not only as a defendant in a legal proceeding but also as a person being visually recorded and interpreted by observers.

Significance

The Hall of Justice concentrates several distinct legal questions without collapsing them into one. The earlier dispute concerned whether Milligan could assist his lawyers at the time of the proceedings; the trial addressed his responsibility when the offenses occurred; and the ruling transferred authority to the probate court. Its significance lies in this sequence: a criminal courtroom established the outcome of the charges, while the consequences of the insanity finding continued under a different legal authority.