Prosecution seeks psychiatric records ahead of Thursday hearing in Walmart mass shooting case
by Robert Moore
October 28, 2024
Emergence Health Network is seeking to quash a subpoena from the District Attorney’s Office seeking treatment records of the Walmart mass shooting suspect last year from a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
The subpoena was issued Monday morning for a psychiatric nurse practitioner for Emergence Health Network and seeks records of treatment from September 2023 for Patrick Crusius, the man who has acknowledged killing 23 people and wounding 22 others at an El Paso Walmart in 2019. The subpoena also seeks testimony from the psychiatric nurse practitioner at a hearing Thursday in the state capital murder case against Crusius.
Michael Wyatt, the chief legal officer for Emergence Health Network, which provides mental health treatment at the El Paso County jail, filed a motion hours later asking 409th District Court Judge Sam Medrano to quash the subpoena. El Paso Matters is not naming the nurse practitioner to project their privacy.
The subpoena doesn’t meet requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA, for disclosing a patient’s protected health information to a third party, Wyatt said in his motion.
Emergence Health Network “has a legal obligation under federal and state law to protect medical information of its patients; it cannot simply disclose protected health information requested under subpoena or an order which does not comply with the regulations,” he wrote.
HIPAA requires that a subpoena must show that the patient was notified of the request with reasonable time to object, the motion states.
In addition to seeking to quash the subpoena, EHN also sought a protective order prohibiting future subpoenas “unless and until Petitioner shows the Court that good cause exists for disclosure of protected health information or that consent has been obtained by patient witness for the disclosure of protected health information and that such information is relevant to the subject matter to be litigated in these court proceedings.”
Defense attorney Joe Spencer declined comment to El Paso Matters, saying “we will respond at the hearing.”
Medrano has not ruled on the motions from EHN.
In a statement to El Paso Matters, District Attorney Bill Hicks said he’s seeking the information to respond to defense allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that will be the subject of Thursday’s hearing.
“The purpose of the subpoena is twofold. First to rebut the assertion of the defense that anyone entered the shooter’s cell at the direction of the DA’s office; second to rebut the defense’s assertion that anyone has provided any records of his treatment while in the jail to the DA’s office,” Hicks said.
In a Sept. 9 motion that alleged numerous examples of prosecutorial misconduct, defense lawyers said that on Sept. 25, 2023, “the Sheriff’s Office permitted a mental health professional to contact Mr. Crusius and speak to him about a wide latitude of topics without the prior knowledge or consent of defense counsel.”
Neither the defense motion nor the subpoena list the reasons for a psychiatric professional seeing Crusius in the jail.
The subpoena and response from EHN are the latest in a flurry of court filings in the past two months in the state case against Crusius, 26, who faces charges of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart.
Medrano has scheduled a hearing for Thursday and Friday that will focus on accusations of prosecutorial misconduct raised in the Sept. 9 defense motion. Hicks has denied the accusations, which include obtaining recordings between the defendant and his attorneys; and improperly accessing logs of visits between Crusius and the attorneys.
The motion asks Medrano to consider dismissing the charges or removing the death penalty as a possible punishment if he finds that the District Attorney’s Office violated Crusius’ Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial.
Crusius pleaded guilty last year to federal hate crimes and weapons charges after prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison without possibility of parole.The state case against Crusius was delayed while the federal case was ongoing, and no trial date has been set. A scheduling order issued by Medrano last month indicates a trial could start in mid-2026.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the agency seeking to quash the subpoena. The County Attorney’s Office formerly represented Emergence Health Network, but EHN moved to in-house legal counsel earlier this year.
