Bernard Morris, right, with attorney Mike Caputo
A man with Asperger's Syndrome who pleaded guilty to setting up cameras in dorm rooms of female students at UTC will have to serve time in state prison.
The ruling by Criminal Court Judge Don Poole came late Thursday, though the attorney for Bernard "Junior" Morris said he and his mother "are terrified about him going to prison." The attorney and witnesses said Morris has been assaulted by other inmates and had his glasses broken while at the county jail. He has been kept in solitary confinement at times and is now in the medical area, though he is not ill, it was stated.
Judge Poole ordered into execution a three-year sentence.
Morris was on probation for related offenses of taking underwear from the bedroom of a young female neighbor and later setting her house on fire.
He has served the past 14 months in jail.
Morris was given additional new sentences of four years suspended upon serving 11 months and 29 days. That time will be consecutive to the prison sentence.
After he is released he must be under electronic monitoring and have an intensive program of treatment for Asperger's, which witnesses said involves a person lacking social skills and often getting picked on.
Judge Poole said he believes that special accomodations can be made for the 24-year-old Morris at prison.
Morris also pleaded guilty to setting a fire in a trash chute at a UTC dorm about two weeks before putting the cameras in the female dorms. He was monitoring the cameras on a laptop and a desktop computer. A UTC police officer said Morris told him he put out the cameras "for sexual gratification" while the female students were away from school on spring break.
Witnesses for Morris said he told them he did it because he was trying to get back at students he believed had moved things around in his room. He was an RA at UTC at the time and had access to the dorm rooms. UTC now has a policy of checking the criminal background of potential RAs.
The mother of one of the UTC female students, in an emotion statement, said after her daughter found the items moved around in her room, "She called me crying. She was completely terrified." She said her daughter had to move off campus and is still afraid to go out alone at night.
The witness said the incident "has changed me, and I have prayed to try to forgive him, but I can't yet." She said she usually is a strong person, but now "I'm a mess. It's terrified me."
She told Morris, "I have so much anger and pure hatred. You made me want to do things to you that I couldn't even think about."
Ruth Morris, the defendant's mother, said she knew there was something different about her youngest child when he was slow to speak and then had trouble making friends.
She said she is a child development specialist and professor at Southern Adventist College, but until she began studying her son's problem she "had never heard of Asperger's."
Dr. Morris said when the family moved her from Minneapolis her son enrolled at Ooltewah High School. She said he was mainstreamed, but the school hired an older woman to go around with him all day at school as a "life coach." At Ooltewah High, she said, "He was like a strange creature. He was treated like a joke."
She said on one occasion a female student accused him of rubbing against her in the hallway, though her son denied it and the life coach said she did not see it. She said he pleaded nolo contendere in Juvenile Court to that charge after the girl's father threatened her son, her family and the school "because this black boy" had contact with her daughter. He then got in trouble for the problems with the neighbor girl and got a three-year suspended sentence.
She said after he left high school and enrolled at UTC he seemed to be doing well for about three years. She said he "joined every club that was available" at the university and became an RA. She said, "For the ffirst time in his life he was happy. I was overjoyed."
Dr. Morris said, "He has long periods of doing fine, then he does something and you say, 'What? Why did you do that?'"
She said if he would get a suspended sentence that he could move back in with her and he would likely continue his education online. She said Dr. Greg Williams, whose father is a family friend at Southern Adventis, could provide intensive therapy for the Asperger's.
Dr. Williams said "Junior" is loving to his close family and a few others he knows well, but has trouble interacting with others and may respond in strange ways to contact from others.
He said, "His prognosis is good, but he needs lots of supervision over an extended period."
Prosecutor Cameron Williams requested additional incarceration, citing his "dangerous criminal behavior that keeps happening over and over again."
Attorney Caputo said, "I don't think there's anybody in this court who believes that Bernard Morris will make it in prison." He said with plenty of supervision, "he can lead a normal, productive life."