DENVER (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that a man accused of killing three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in 2015 is incompetent to stand trial.
Thursday's ruling means another delay in U.S. prosecutors’ efforts to bring Robert Dear to trial after he’d repeatedly been deemed incompetent in state court.
U.S. District Court Senior Judge Robert Blackburn found Dear incompetent during a brief hearing in Denver. Neither prosecutors nor the defense contesting the finding — but Dear did, as he has on past occasions.
The Denver Post reports that Blackburn ordered Dear to continue to receive mental health treatment to determine if he can attain the capacity to permit federal proceedings to go forward.