Lawyers say Medicine Can't Work for Accused Kidnapper

Lawyers say Medicine Can't Work for Accused Kidnapper


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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Lawyers for the man charged in the 2002 abduction of Salt Lake City teenager Elizabeth Smart say he is unlikely to regain mental competency or ever leave a state hospital.

The lawyers argued that forcible medication won't make Brian David Mitchell competent in final papers delivered to a judge who will make that decision.

Prosecutors argue that the charges against Mitchell must be resolved.

Mitchell and his estranged wife, Wanda Barzee, were charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. They are accused of abducting the then-14-year-old girl so that Mitchell could take her as his plural wife, fulfilling a prophecy he said was told to him by God. Smart was found walking with the couple on a suburban street nine months after she was taken from her bedroom.

Barzee is appealing a forced medication order of her own at the Utah Supreme Court.

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Information from: The Deseret Morning News

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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