A federal judge has ruled that convicted murderer and kidnapper Joseph Duncan is mentally competent to face a death penalty hearing.

Duncan faces the death penalty on three of 10 federal charges related to the 2005 kidnapping of young Dylan and Shasta Groene, of Coeur d’Alene, and the slaying of Dylan. A hearing on whether Duncan should be allowed to represent himself during the sentencing hearing will be held Monday.

Earlier this year, Duncan had asked U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to allow him to represent himself, saying his attorneys could not ethically represent his ideologies.  The judge says an evaluator with the Bureau of Prisons found no evidence of any mental disorders or defects, nor a history of psychosis and mood or thought disorders.

An evaluator selected by the defense team, found Duncan wasn’t rationally able to understand the proceedings or assist in his defense, but Lodge said he found that opinion to be less credible than the bureau’s official.

Duncan, a convicted pedophile from Tacoma, Washington, pleaded guilty in December to the federal charges related to the kidnapping of then 8-year old Shasta, and her 9-year old brother Dylan.  The children were abducted from their Coeur d’Alene-area home in May 2005 after Duncan fatally bludgeoned the children’s mother, Brenda Groene, their 13-year-old brother Slade, and the mother’s fiance, Mark McKenzie.

Both children were sexually abused before Duncan shot and killed Dylan at a remote campsite in western Montana. Shasta was rescued on July 2, 2005, when a waitress spotted Duncan and the girl in a Coeur d’Alene restaurant.

It will be up to Duncan’s penalty phase jurors to decide whether he gets the death penalty or life in prison without parole.  Duncan has already pleaded guilty in state court to murdering McKenzie and Slade and Brenda Groene before driving away with the two children. (AP)