FILE - This Oct. 3, 2016, photo, provided by the Martin County Sheriff's Office, shows Austin Harrouff. Harrouff, a former college student who killed a Florida couple in their garage six years earlier and then chewed on one victim’s face, is finally set to go on trial, Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.
The trial has been delayed by the pandemic, legal wranglings and Harrouff’s recovery from critical injuries suffered while drinking a chemical during the attack. It will be in Stuart, an hour drive north of West Palm Beach, and last about three weeks. If Harrouff is ruled insane, Bauer will commit him to a secure mental hospital until doctors and a judge agree that he is no longer dangerous. That would also effectively be a life sentence, said Craig Trocino, a University of Miami law professor, because “it's highly unlikely” that doctors and a judge would risk releasing a killer as notorious as Harrouff.
Lea Johnston, a University of Florida law professor, said that only about 1% of felony defendants try an insanity defense because the bar to succeed is so high. About a quarter of those succeed, usually in a pretrial deal where prosecutors agree that the defendant's mental illness meets the standard.
Harrouff's attack made national headlines because of its brutality and randomness; he did not know the victims. He was a 19-year-old with no criminal record — a former high school football player and wrestler who was studying exercise science. He stripped nearly naked and attacked the couple in their open garage with tools that he found there. When police arrived, Harrouff was biting chunks off John Stevens' face.
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