A murder trial was delayed until early February after a Colorado psychologist with past conduct issues appeared to amend his mental evaluation of a murder suspect less than a week before his trial was set to start.

After expert witness Dr. Scott Wylie for the defense of James Hanlon, accused of gunning down his neighbor after he was cited by the humane society for a “dangerous dog,” last week submitted notes that appeared to obfuscate his original evaluation, Hanlon’s trial was delayed to Feb. 7 on Friday afternoon.

Hanlon’s trial, originally slated to begin Monday morning, was rescheduled because district judge Samuel Evig said it would be an “abuse of discretion to take away the defense’s main defense.”

Hanlon, 56, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to first-degree murder in August 2020, a defense that typically uses expert medical testimony to claim a defendant was legally insane at the time a crime was committed.

Wylie, a medical and forensic psychologist based in Fort Collins, originally evaluated Hanlon as having a severe cognitive impairment and said he couldn’t form a culpable mental state, prosecutors said, which they accepted as the basis for Hanlon’s insanity plea.

However, after a roughly two-hour follow-up session with Hanlon on Oct. 26, he submitted a second, handwritten summary of his evaluation that prosecutors said was riddled with redactions and used several new terms to evaluate Hanlon.

Prosecutors said that among those terms were new mentions of a “fugue” state, obsessive compulsive disorder, and hallucinations, adding that critical components of the report, like symptoms and diagnoses, had been scribbled out with a permanent pen.

“He’s expanded one very specific … diagnosis to four different … diagnoses,” deputy district attorney Andy Vaughn said Friday. “And so far, I’ve been stonewalled on his final diagnosis.”

On Friday, prosecutors asked Evig to order that Wylie produce a full, unredacted report on Hanlon’s mental state and send that to defense attorneys so they and the court could be prepared on how attorneys would be defending Hanlon.

When Alan Davis, who represents Hanlon, reached Wylie to ask for the full report, Wylie told Davis over email that he was in court in Wyoming all day and wouldn’t be able to produce the information.

Davis noted that the defense had turned everything over to prosecutors as soon as they had it, and hadn’t scheduled the meeting or made the redactions at issue.

He added, however, that the defense needed an expert witness to make an effective case for Hanlon, who waived his right to a speedy trial to help resolve scheduling issues.

That prompted Evig, who said he didn’t believe defense attorneys had acted in bad faith, to vacate upcoming trial dates and reschedule to Feb. 7. Before he did so, however, he aired his frustration with the timing of the summary, calling it “wildly inappropriate” and personally apologizing to victim Gary Dolce’s family, who on Friday objected to the trial’s latest delay.

“When people talk about the inefficiencies of the judicial system, and when they talk about the problems of the judicial system, this is what they’re talking about,” Evig told Dolce’s family on Friday. “I’m sorry. I’m apologizing to you.”

Vaughn noted that the late filing of the summary could be viewed as a strategic decision made on Hanlon’s behalf to distract him and his fellow prosecutors from the trial.

“Ms. McKinney and I have done nothing but chase our tails since this came out,” Vaughn said. “There is some strategic value to that.”

In 2017, Wylie was cited by the Colorado State Board of Psychologist Examiners for “substandard” record-keeping and for issues with conducting and interpreting tests, according to Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies records. He was also cited in 2013 for issues with “abused prescription medication.”

As part of the 2017 citation, Wylie was ordered in April to begin 18 months of probation, during which he was to report to rotating practice monitors who would supervise and evaluate Wylie’s work.

On Friday, however, Vaughn said Wylie had told Davis he didn’t have a practice monitor, which Vaughn said raised concerns for prosecutors about whether he was licensed to practice psychology in Colorado.

When Evig asked Davis if he’d known about the potential issues with Wylie’s license, Davis said he knew about past conduct issues, but didn’t know about potential problems with his license.

Friday afternoon, Wylie was ordered by Evig to appear in court Monday morning on a subpoena filed by prosecutors after they received his second round of notes.

When he didn’t show, Evig ordered him to return to court Dec. 17, this time on pending contempt of court charges to be filed by the district attorney’s office.

The contempt proceedings, prosecutors said, came in lieu of a bench warrant, which Evig said couldn’t be issued because the jury trial set for Monday had been vacated.

When reached via email for comment, Wylie told The Gazette that he’d withdrawn from the case on Friday after misconduct on behalf of the district attorney’s office.

“Ongoing and highly inappropriate harassment and intimidation of me and my family by … Vaughn and those working for him has left me with no other choice but to withdraw my testimony and resign from this case effective Oct. 29,” Wylie wrote in an email.

Howard Black, spokesman for the Fourth Judicial District Attorney’s office, said in a Monday statement that “Dr. Wylie is a defense endorsed expert witness who was ordered by the court to appear in person this morning, but Dr. Wylie failed to comply with that order.”

On Monday, Vaughn noted to Evig that Wylie had said he was planning to withdraw his testimony and drop out of the case. Evig said that was a defense issue for attorneys to iron out with Wylie, and that Wylie was still on the hook for his court date in December.