NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Coming out from behind the governor's budget, a bill is moving forward that would provide judges further ability to act when people who are found mentally incompetent sit before them in court.
HB 1640 would mean a person facing criminal charges deemed not competent to stand trial by a judge would be sent to a mental health facility and the individual would not be able to possess or purchase firearms. It has now found funding in the governor's amended budget. The fiscal note has the bill at $2.1 million recurring throughout the years.
The bill is named for Jillian Ludwig.
Hear from Ludwig's family in the player above about this legislation.
Jillian died in November allegedly at the hands of a man the court had previously declared mentally incompetent. A bullet struck her while she took a walk two blocks from Belmont University. Jillian was on the ground for an hour before anyone found her. Her family sat through what they described as an agonizing flight before landing in Nashville, only knowing their daughter had been shot.
Rep. Ryan Williams asked the Ludwig family if he could attach an amendment that would name the effort in her honor. Williams, R-Cookeville, has a child currently attending Belmont.
The bill will go through the legislative finance committees, calendar and rules and then the House and Senate floors.
How the Ludwigs fought for the bill
Jillian's parents flew back and forth from New Jersey to Nashville to testify in legislative committees on this bill.
It took the Ludwigs time before they started looking for options to make sure this happened to no one else.
This was after learning Jillian would not survive her injuries — after the four-hour line of people wrapping around the block for her funeral arrangements.
You can read how Jillian's family has worked on this proposed law at this link.
"The first days we were so focused on her," said Matt Ludwig told me and Hunter Hoagland in an interview in February. "We hadn't given so much thought to that. The reality set in and it was maddening, and it made a terrible situation that much worse."
Putting their grief into action, her mother Jessica said she wanted her daughter's death to be more than a statistic.
"Who would object? I don't see any downsides to it. If it goes through, everyone wins and everyone is safer. It seems like the right thing to do. We want her name to be remembered for helping people," she said.
Who is arrested for Jillian's death?
A grand jury indicted Shaquille Taylor this month with first-degree murder and evidence tampering.
Taylor has an intellectual disability and language impairment, according to court records I obtained back in November. That determination meant he wasn't able to participate in a trial where he was accused of shooting into a car in 2021 off of Dickerson Pike where a 3-year-old and 1-year-old were in the back seat. He admitted to detectives in 2021 that he did it.
Taylor's criminal history
- 2011: Police seized a .40 caliber handgun from Taylor during an incident when he was a juvenile.
- 2015: Taylor was charged with robbery and given probation
- 2016: Taylor violated that probation when he was charged with aggravated burglary and was sentenced to a year in jail.
- 2021: Taylor was arrested after he and another man fired a gun into a car on Dickerson Pike in East Nashville. He was charged with aggravated assault.
- May 2023: He was released from custody after three court-appointed psychologists deemed him incompetent to stand trial, but also found he didn't pose an imminent threat to himself or others.
- Sept. 2023: Taylor was charged with auto theft and released on bail, but an arrest warrant was issued for him last Friday when he failed to show up in court.
How we have covered mental incompetency
NewsChannel 5 has been covering this topic frequently since Jillian's death, but that reporting started before she was killed.
Ben Hall has looked at mental health and how it intertwines with the court, jail and health systems in his Broken - Mental Health Crisis series for NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
I have covered Jillian's case since I started looking up Taylor's criminal history, and I found cases where he was deemed mentally incompetent prior. That sent me on a search in the courthouse, looking through many court files and motions related to Taylor's past.
Two weeks later, another case dealing with a mentally incompetent man who allegedly shot and killed his family member came to the forefront. I looked into his records and found a similar history to Taylor's.
The man I mentioned above? His story is here: He was charged with killing his 'brother' 19 years after being found mentally unstable
After digging into these cases, I found another: Lucy Fullerton. She was killed in the 1970s by her then-fiance, who had his mental incompetency questioned from the start.
I talked to Lucy's family, including here 97-year-old mother. You can read her story here.
Fullerton's story was later brought up in the House committee for this bill as an example of how long Tennessee has dealt with this issue.
