Ex-Army Officer, Suffering from PTSD, Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity

By: Tracey Kaplan, Mercury News

In a landmark case for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, a Santa Clara County jury Tuesday found a former Army captain diagnosed with PTSD not guilty by reason of insanity for robbing a Mountain View pharmacy of drugs at gunpoint.

Sargent Binkley, 34, faced a maximum of 22 years and eight months and a minimum of 12 years in state prison after the same jury convicted him last week of the 2006 robbery. He initially spent about two years in county jail awaiting trial and has been in a residential drug treatment program ever since.

The jury's verdict in the sanity phase of the trial Tuesday means Binkley could be treated for the syndrome in a state hospital or as an outpatient. He was taken into custody Tuesday to be evaluated.

"What this case means is that the jury stood behind a soldier,'' said Charles J. Smith, one of his attorneys. "We strongly believe that soldiers should get preferential treatment if they come back with problems after their service to our country.''

Binkley and his father, Edward, burst into tears when the verdict was announced.

"There was no reason this case should have ever gone to trial,'' Edward Binkley said, adding that his son turned himself in after committing a second robbery in San Mateo.

The prosecutor who tried the case, Deborah Medved, and a spokeswoman for the DA's office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Binkley graduated from West Point and served in Bosnia and Honduras before he received a general discharge in 2003. His defense attorneys argued that he became traumatized by two events — guarding a mass grave in Bosnia and shooting a teenager in a Honduran drug raid.

His father said he became addicted to morphine-based painkillers after dislocating his hip while running away from an alcohol-fueled fight in Honduras over a woman.