New competency hearing granted Jan. 6 for Mitchell

A 3rd District judge on Friday granted a new competency hearing for accused Elizabeth Smart kidnapper Brian David Mitchell — who had to be removed from the courtroom when he wouldn't stop singing a Christmas hymn.

Mitchell was led into the court wearing a tan jail jumpsuit and orange shoes, with his hands handcuffed behind his back and his legs shackled.

After he sat down next to his attorneys, Mitchell began singing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Mitchell sang for 41 seconds in the otherwise silent courtroom before Judge Judith Atherton said, "That's enough, Mr. Mitchell."

Atherton then had Mitchell removed from the courtroom. He continued singing as Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies took him back to his holding cell.

"He sings well," Atherton commented before continuing with the hearing. "He got the words right on."

When the hearing resumed, defense attorney Vernice Trease argued that Mitchell's competency needed to be re-evaluated because of firsthand observations made by co-counsel Heidi Buchi and Jennifer L. Skeem, Ph.D., a forensic psychologist hired by the defense to examine their client.

Mitchell was ruled competent to stand trial on Aug. 31. But Skeem, not one of the court-appointed psychologists assigned to the case, had a meeting with Mitchell at the Salt Lake County Jail on Oct. 29 and decided her initial evaluation, which found him competent, needed to be updated, Trease said.

Trease told the court that she could not give specific examples of why Mitchell needed his competency to be looked at again without violating attorney-client privileges. She only noted that his "reasoning was more strongly driven by his delusions."

Mitchell, 51, along with co-defendant and wife, Wanda Barzee, 59, were indicted by a state grand jury Sept. 4, 2003, charged with aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of aggravated burglary and conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping.

Those indictments were kept sealed until Sept. 1, a day after Mitchell, a self-proclaimed prophet who called himself Immanuel, was ruled competent to stand trial. Barzee was found incompetent to stand trial earlier this year and is currently at the Utah State Hospital. Mitchell's 12-day trial is scheduled to begin in February.

Atherton sternly questioned the defense's motion for a new competency hearing, noting that she could not make a ruling based on hearsay and that the case had already been delayed seven months for the first evaluation.