SALT LAKE CITY — A judge has ruled that a woman accused of leaving her newborn baby in a trash can will never be restored to competency to stand trial because her intellectual disability is too severe.

But prosecutors say the case is not over yet and they plan to file new motions requesting that more testing be done and other efforts be made to restore competency before declaring her non-restorable.

Third District Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills issued the ruling late Tuesday, declaring that Alicia Englert is still incompetent to stand trial.

Englert, 24, is charged with attempted murder, a first-degree felony, for allegedly giving birth in her Kearns bedroom in secret in August 2014 and then putting the newborn in a neighbor's trash can two days later while on her way to work.

Police say Englert gave birth to the baby she said she didn't know she was carrying in a bathroom at her parents' home. She didn't feed the baby or care for the baby before she left it naked in the trash, according to court documents.

A woman walking through the neighborhood heard the baby's cries and called 911. The baby girl survived and was later released into state custody.

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Will mom in trash can baby case ever be competent for trial?

Can Alicia Englert, charged with leaving her newborn in a trash can, be restored to competency to stand trial? Or is her intellectual disability so severe that she will never be able to process what's happening in court?

But since then, the case has been essentially at a standstill because of Englert's mental condition. She does not have a mental illness, according to experts who evaluated her. However, Englert is borderline "intellectual functioning," or intellectually incompetent, evaluators say, and consistently scores about a 65 on her IQ tests.

During oral arguments given in court a week ago, Englert's defense called psychologists to testify that Englert will never be able to assist in her own defense because she doesn't have the reasoning skills or the ability to make reasoned decisions, and no amount of treatment can cure that. The defense says Englert can be taught to "parrot" information, or give learned responses to certain questions, but she wouldn't be able to understand why she is giving those answers.

Prosecutors, however, argued that psychologists only spent two hours with Englert, which isn't enough time to get an accurate prognosis of whether a person can be restored to competency.

The state plans to file additional motions in an attempt to restore Englert to competency, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said Wednesday.

A review hearing has been set for Sept. 25. In the meantime, Gill said the charges against Englert have not been dropped.

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