Brian David Mitchell will face charges of kidnapping within the Elizabeth Smart case after years of avoiding them. Jury selection began Monday for Mitchell’s court, more than eight years after Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 years old in 2002, disappeared from her family’s Salt Lake City home. Mitchell’s lawyers plan to argue that the man is insane, despite the fact that that didn’t work for his wife, who was convicted last year and might testify against him. Source of article – Elizabeth Smart kidnapper to stand trial after 8 years of delays by Personal Money Store.
The Smart kidnapping
Elizabeth Smart had been kidnapped on June 5, 2002. Her parents put every effort into finding her when the news soaked it all up. The teenager's abduction had been known by everyone. The drifter who had worked at the Smart residence at one point, Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Ileen Barzee, were found with her nine months later just 18 miles from her home. Mitchell, who believed he had been a prophet named “Emmanuel,” was charged along with his wife with kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary. In July 2005, the couple was in a Utah district court and had been ruled incompetent to stand trial.
Smart has a case
Elizabeth Smart's case brought on a TV movie and book to be made about it. This brought on Mitchell and Barzee to be ruled competent to withstand court again in 2008. In November 2009 Barzee pleaded guilty to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor. She was sent straight to prison. She will remain there for 15 years. Barzee made a plea agreement to cooperate in both state and federal cases against Mitchell. A nurse watching Mitchell in a psychiatric ward said in December 2009 that he had been trying to avoid prosecution by faking insanity. In March 2010, Mitchell was told by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball that he would stand trial. The judge called him a "misleading psychopath" also.
Mitchell is on trial right now
A Mitchell competency listening to is where 22 year old Elizabeth Smart testified. She testified to having been taken from her room and abused sexually. This occurred many times when being kept captive by Mitchell. The next thing Mitchell's attorney's did had been say that there would not be any impartial jurors to do the case since there was so much media coverage of the account in 2002. 35 potential jurors followed Mitchell to the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City Monday while he had been dressed as a prisoner rather than a patient.
Citations
Washington Post
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102202949.html
CNN
cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/31/utah.elizabeth.smart.trial/index.html?npt=NP1
Salt Lake Tribune
sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50581578-76/mitchell-juror-jury-case.html.csp
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart_kidnapping
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