SALT LAKE CITY, July 8 (UPI) -- Federal prosecutors in Utah have asked for a hearing on an insanity defense for the man charged with abducting Elizabeth Smart.
They filed a motion Wednesday suggesting Brian Mitchell's lawyers may not have enough evidence to try to convince a jury Mitchell was insane, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. They asked U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball to order Mitchell, 56, to attend the hearing so he cannot claim he was not notified of the insanity defense.
Mitchell's lawyers filed a notice last week saying they have "expert evidence of mental disease or defect." In their motion, prosecutors said they do not believe the defense has expert evidence that Mitchell did not understand what he was doing was wrong.
Smart, then 14, was kidnapped from her home in 2002. Mitchell, working with his common-law wife, allegedly kept her captive for nine months so she could be an additional wife.
Mitchell is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 1.
