Legal experts weigh in on what’s next for admitted Planned Parenthood shooter
It will be at least a month before a judge rules whether alleged Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear is competent to stand trial.
The results of a mental evaluation have yet to be publicly released.
However, at a court hearing on Thursday, Dear’s attorney said he did not dispute the findings, and requested that Dear be immediately sent to the state’s mental hospital in Pueblo.
Prosecutors then requested the judge schedule a competency hearing, where defense attorneys will have to prove the incompetency.
Former District Judge Victor Reyes says based on the hearings, one can assume that the mental evaluation found Dear incompetent to proceed.
“By the defense not objecting, and asking that the person be transferred to the Colorado Mental Health Institute, the reasonable inference is that the report says the person is incompetent to proceed.”
District Attorney Dan May didn’t confirm afterward whether he plans to request a second evaluation or dispute the findings next month.
Defense attorney Jeremy Loew predicts the DA will do that.
However, based on his own experience, he says an incompitency finding is very difficult to overturn.
“It’s definitely going to be a challenge for the district attorney’s office to have Mr. Dear found competent to proceed,” said Loew.
But Loew added that most of his past clients sent to the mental hospital in Pueblo received counseling and/or medication and were sent back in a matter of months, deemed competent to be prosecuted once again.
“I have seen in very rare circumstances where somebody is not restored to competency outside of 6 months to a year, sometimes even less than that,” said Loew.
The competency hearing is set for April 28th.
Dear has already told the media himself that he was found incompetent.
Although a gag order typically doesn’t apply to defendants, presiding judge Gilbert Martinez could instruct him not to release details like that in the future, or else be held in contempt of court.
