Most people blame the dog. Cory Coddington ratted out an oak tree.
Rewind to June 6. Coddington nearly cratered a building and toppled a tree on East Hillsboro Boulevard. A woman stopped to help. He crawled out of the wreck barefoot, said “let me sit down,” climbed into the driver’s seat of her BMW and took off. She had just enough time to yank her passenger out. His parting words: “Get the fuck away.”
He drove her car to Chick-fil-A. Barefoot, he walked in, grabbed a handful of fries off a table where a mother and her kids were eating, and walked out. He cut through the bushes to a gas station. He nearly ran down an off-duty firefighter. When deputies showed up, he fought them. He went for a deputy’s gun. During the struggle, he shoved his finger up a deputy’s ass. When a first responder tried to patch up his bleeding head, he headbutted them. In his pocket: a sandwich bag of drugs.
That’s the State’s account, in open court. Nobody has said it didn’t happen.
Judge Frank Ledee locked him up without bond in June. Now attorney Russell Williams says Coddington was legally insane that afternoon and should be let out on bond. The theory: the tree gave him a brain injury, and the brain injury meant he didn’t know what he was doing, or didn’t know it was wrong.
Four months in a cell and this is what they came up with.
Not good. Well, from this side of the screen, really, really good.
His own family blew this up in June
Back then, Williams wasn’t talking about a brain injury. He was talking about a man who’d been falling apart for months. Coddington’s wife testified about it. His father testified that before the crash, Cory told him he could travel through time, knew somebody was going to kill him in July 2027, and planned to go back and kill that person first. Six days before the tree, his wife watched him running down the street in a panic while two police departments were told his family was missing. They weren’t.
Drugs are bad, m’kay?
So in June, the problem started months before the crash. In October, the crash caused the problem. Same lawyer. Same client. Pick one.
He knew exactly what he was doing
A man who doesn’t know what he’s doing does not pick a working car out of a crash scene, drive it across town without hitting anything, dump it, and then fight the cops who come for him, go for their gun, and headbutt the person trying to help him. Ditching the car means he knew it was hot. Fighting arrest means he knew what arrest was. Fleeing the crash is its own charge. Every move after the tree was a decision.
The drugs don’t care about the tree
The insanity claim is supposed to cover every charge. One of those charges is the sandwich bag. It was in his pocket before he ever hit the oak.
Insanity is not a door out
Say a jury buys it. He doesn’t go home. He goes to a hearing where a judge decides if he’s dangerous. A man who, by his own lawyer’s account, takes one hit to the head and starts carjacking strangers and grabbing for guns is the definition of dangerous. Trade the jail cell for a state hospital bed. Congratulations.
And the judge making that call is Frank Ledee, tough as nails. Cory lost the judge lottery the day this case hit his courtroom.
Excellent. Most excellent.
He’s already told us what court orders mean to him
Bond comes with conditions. Conditions are court orders. In January a judge ordered him away from his wife. In March he booked a cruise with her, cabin next door, and got arrested at the port.
Three arrests in seven months. One tree.
The motions are filed. Ledee decides. He’s heard this man’s story once already.