by All Things Crime Blog staff
Cuyahoga County Common Plea Judge Michael Russo ordered on Wednesday that human monster Ariel Castro must undergo a competency evaluation to verify that he is not non compis mentis and can understand the charges that the state is bringing against him so that he will be able to “assist attorneys in his defense.” The examination by the court-appointed doctor may have already occurred as of this writing but the results do not appear to have been released.
Crimesider reported via the Associated Press:
The prosecutor Tim McGinty has announced that he will be going back to the grand jury to seek additional charges in the near future. The state Attorney General Mike DeWine has announced “that a state crime laboratory is checking new evidence to determine if there were additional victims.”
McGinty said he believes Castro is mentally competent for trial and was competent when he committed the crimes.
“We have absolutely no doubt … that he’s entirely competent, knows exactly what he’s doing now and did then,” McGinty said in court Wednesday.
Based on what he told reporters, Castro’s attorney, Craig Weintraub, also believes that Castro is competent to stand trial.
Castro has pleaded not guilty to 329 counts in an indictment that covers August 2002, when the first woman disappeared, to February 2007.
The indictment — as it currently stands –alleges, among other things, that “Castro held the women captive, sometimes chaining them to a pole in a basement, to a bedroom heater or inside a van. It says one of the women tried to escape, and he assaulted her with a vacuum cord around her neck.”
The prosecutor McGinty hasn’t said if he’ll pursue a death sentence for a charge of forced miscarriage involving one woman.
Castro is being held on $8 million bail. In a not unexpected blow to the media, Castro has — up to this point –turned down all media interview requests.
The trial is currently scheduled for early August, but that could change to give attorneys more time to prepare.
The fact that McGinty has announced that he plans to go back before the Grand Jury may suggest that he wishes to supercede or update that aggravated murder charge based on Castro allegedly forcibly aborting one of the female victims fetuses. Although conviction on these counts probably would not result in Castro receiving the death penalty, that is not set in stone.