The defense lawyer for a man accused of killing a 23-month-old toddler said yesterday he will probably ask that his client be examined by a panel of experts to assess his mental fitness to stand trial.

Lawyer Randy Oyama appeared with Matthew Higa, 23, yesterday to enter a plea of not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder.

Oyama said Higa's history of mental health problems stretches back as far as elementary school, when his mother died.

Also, a close friend of Higa's, Andrew Hansen, 20, died in a high-speed auto accident in 2004, an incident that also may have affected Higa's psychiatric health, Oyama said.

Then Higa's grandmother, who had raised Higa after his mother died, passed away, Oyama said.

"I think he went through distinct psychiatric changes," said Oyama. "He withdrew, he stopped going to school."

Neighbors who lived near Higa and his father, Shelton Higa, in the Nu'uanu area described the younger man earlier this month as "reclusive" and said the pair often argued loudly.

One neighbor recalled a change in Higa's behavior after high school, and an even more significant change after Hansen's death.

Shelton Higa told reporters last week that his son has a history of mental problems and of illegal drug use.

Jim Fulton, executive assistant to City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, said yesterday that prosecutors had no comment on Oyama's possible plans to seek a psychiatric evaluation of Higa.

Under Hawai'i criminal law, a defendant asserting the insanity defense must be examined by a court-appointed panel of three experts to determine if the individual was legally sane at the time of the offense.

MAU-GOFFREDO CASE

Adam Mau-Goffredo, who is charged in a 2006 triple homicide, is mentally competent to stand trial for the three murders and related crimes, according to a three-member panel that examined him. That assessment is being disputed by Mau-Goffredo's lawyers.

Determination of Higa's mental fitness at the time of the crime would also be complicated by Higa's alleged abuse of the drug crystal methamphetamine.

The results of toxicological tests ordered by authorities after Higa's arrest have not been released.

Higa is scheduled to go to trial the week of March 31 before Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario, although that preliminary trial date likely will be pushed back by pretrial motions.

He is accused of killing Cyrus Belt, the son of a neighbor, by throwing the child from the Miller Street pedestrian overpass spanning the H-1 Freeway shortly before noon on Jan. 17.

Higa, who has never been charged with a serious crime, is being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

If convicted of the murder charge, Higa would face life in prison without the possibility of parole. The second-degree murder charge normally carries the possibility of parole, but prosecutors are seeking an "enhanced" sentence because of the age of the victim.

BEATING SUSPECT'S PLEA

Another man charged with a grisly murder, Alapeti S. Tunoa Jr., also entered a not guilty plea in court yesterday and was bound over for trial the week of March 31.

Tunoa, 30, is accused of bludgeoning his ex-girlfriend to death with the butt of a shotgun in the middle of a Kailua residential street Jan. 16.

Tunoa has a lengthy criminal record and faces additional charges, including a firearms offense and the assault of a bystander who tried to intervene in the attack.

He is being held on $1 million bail.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.