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)

Legal experts say the previous guilty pleas of confessed murderer and kidnapper Joseph Duncan will likely not be voided if he’s found mentally incompetent to represent himself in his sentencing hearing.

University of Missouri law professor Rodney Uphoff, an expert on death penalty cases and former Idaho Attorney General David Leroy say a person can fluctuate between competent and incompetent over time.

Duncan, a convicted pedophile, pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal charges in the May 2005 kidnapping of then 8-year old Shasta and 9-year old Dylan Groene from their Coeur d’Alene home and Dylan’s death. Three of the crimes can carry the death penalty.

The federal sentencing of Duncan has been delayed as presiding Judge Edward Lodge has ordered additional mental evaluations before the jury selection portion of the proceeding can resume. Potential jurors are to report back with the court in late June.
(AP)

More than 300 potential jurors in the federal sentencing hearing of convicted murderer and kidnapper Joseph Duncan have been told that the proceedings will not resume until late June.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge on Tuesday ordered a second mental evaluation of Duncan as part of the court’s determination of whether he should be allowed to act as his own attorney. The extended delay means that jurors originally expected to serve from April to May will be allowed to go about their business or vacations before they call in for instructions June 23. Lodge could send Duncan to the federal Bureau of Prisons in Seattle, which does intensive mental evaluations that include a 30- to 45-day monitoring period.

Duncan faces a possible death penalty for the 2005 kidnapping and molestation of Dylan Groene, 9, and his then-8-year-old sister Shasta, and killing Dylan. Shasta was rescued from Duncan seven weeks after Duncan murdered the children’s mother, mother’s fiancé and teenage brother in order to kidnap the children from the family’s Coeur d’Alene-area home.

Duncan faces the death penalty in three of the ten charges he pleaded guilty to in December in the federal indictment regarding the crimes against the two children.

Shasta Groene told authorities that while Joseph Duncan held her captive at a Montana campsite, he described killing at least three other children – a tip that prompted authorities to investigate Duncan as a possible serial killer.

In federal court hearings in Boise this week, documents submitted into evidence and law enforcement witness testimony showed that the then-8-year-old girl told police about Duncan’s possible prior crimes shortly after her rescue on July 2, 2005.

Two weeks later, an FBI Special Agent interviewed Duncan at the Kootenai County Jail about the prior crimes - an interview that defense attorneys are trying to have suppressed. They also claim that Duncan asked for his attorney, and the agent ignored the request.

The next day, the agent returned to the jail with two detectives from California, but Duncan refused to speak with them. Duncan is a suspect in the killings of a 10-year-old boy in Riverside in 1997, and two young Seattle-area girls in 1996.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge took under advisement defense motions to suppress Duncan’s statements to the FBI agent and to suppress evidence gathered from Duncan’s vehicle after his arrest.

Duncan already has pleaded guilty to killing three people at the Groene family home east of Coeur d’Alene, kidnapping and molesting the family’s two youngest children and then killing one of them, 9-year-old Dylan Groene.

Duncan faces a possible death penalty in federal sentencing hearings set for April.