AUSTIN, Texas – A man accused of going on a shooting rampage that killed six people last year has been found incompetent to stand trial. It is possible that Shane James Jr. never to be tried for the murders in Austin and San Antonio.

“The case is discontinued,” said a criminal attorney unaffiliated with the case, Jeremy Rosenthal.

A Travis County judge signed off on James last month. James currently faces multiple charges, including capital murder, for a shooting spree in December 2023. James admitted to killing his parents San Antonio after his father made a joke. Authorities said he then traveled to Austin and killed four more people and injured two officers and a bicyclist.

In August, James made an interesting request.

“I want to represent myself,” Shane James Jr. told the court.

His lawyer, Russell Hunt, said they asked James to get a mental competency check, which he refused.

“I thought it was unnecessary, it was unfounded, it had no basis, there was no reason for it, and they told me they didn’t think I was competent,” James told the court.

“In cases where a person may be mentally incompetent, it’s not at all unusual for that person not to believe they’re mentally incompetent,” Hunt said.

Judge Clifford Brown told James if he wanted to represent himself, he would have to have a competency evaluation regardless.

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“What I’m going to suggest is that you work through your attorneys and talk to the expert psychologist that they’ve retained and we can address that going forward,” Judge Brown said.

In October 2024, James was found incompetent to stand trial. James is ordered to be observed and treated at a state mental health facility for up to 120 days in order to become competent to stand trial.

“They’re treating him, medicating him and trying to restore him again,” Rosenthal said.

If James is found not competent within that time period, Rosenthal said, “For a felony or capital case, where the sentence is life, as a result, they can keep you there forever, indefinitely, until you you regain competence, at which point you will be judged. “

However, James must enter a state hospital first.

As of November 12, 2024, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office said more than 130 people in the Travis County Jail have been deemed incompetent to stand trial and are awaiting treatment. James needs maximum security because of the level of crimes he is accused of, so he is limited to staying at only two state hospitals. The person at the top of the list waiting for a maximum security hospital has been waiting for more than 285 days.

James has a history of mental illness. A Bexar County arrest warrant said James is schizophrenic. Family members said he continued to become psychotic after he was discharged from the military in 2015.

“We know there was a history of mental health here, but again nothing indicated that this individual was going to commit a crime and certainly not one of this severity where you have multiple victims,” ​​said Bexar County District Attorney , Joe Gonzales.

In 2018, Dimitrios Pagourtzis admitted to shooting and killing eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School.

“Families and victims have waited a very long time for justice,” Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady said.

The confessed shooter continues to be considered incompetent to stand trial.

The case of Robert Lewis Dear Jr., who is accused of walking into a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs with an assault rifle, shooting and killing three and injuring nine others in 2015, has been in limbo since he was found incompetent to stand trial in 2016.

Russell Eugene Weston, Jr., accused of killing two US Capitol police officers in 1998, has not yet been found competent to stand trial.

“If you never regain your competency, then you’re basically a slave to the state,” Rosenthal said.

James has a hearing in Travis County set for January 27, 2025.