Joseph Duncan

As an appeal over the competency of a convicted child killer nears in Idaho's U.S. District Court, a judge is sorting out just what expert witnesses should be allowed to testify about in the case. Joseph Edward Duncan III was sentenced to death in 2008 after admitting he kidnapped and tortured two northern Idaho children before killing one of them. He gave up his appeals later that year, but his former attorneys argued that he wasn't mentally competent and fought the sentence on his behalf. A hearing on the matter will be held in Boise's U.S. District Court in January.

Condemned serial killer Joseph E. Duncan is getting another day in court. Duncan, on death row for the torture and slaying of a North Idaho boy he abducted in 2005 after slaughtering much of the youngster’s family, will undergo a hearing to determine whether he was mentally competent when he decided to represent himself and waive his appeal rights.

BOISE – The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered convicted killer Joseph Duncan back into court in Idaho, saying a federal judge should have ordered a competency hearing before allowing Duncan to waive appeal of his death sentence. The appeals court ordered U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to hold a “retrospective” competency hearing, exploring whether Duncan was competent in November 2008 when he told Lodge he didn’t want to appeal his triple death sentence for the kidnapping, torture and murder of a North Idaho boy. If he’s found competent after the hearing, the death sentence would go forward.