Judge: Man can stand trial for Katrina shooting - FOX 8 WVUE New Orleans News, Weather, Sports

Judge: Man can stand trial for Katrina shooting

Updated:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A federal magistrate has ruled that a Mississippi man is mentally competent to stand trial in August on charges he shot at three men in what prosecutors call a racially motivated attack in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. Magistrate Joseph Wilkinson's order Monday says doctors have concluded Roland Bourgeois Jr. still suffers from "certain mental conditions" but is able to understand the nature of the proceedings against him and assist in his defense.

A different magistrate ruled last year that Bourgeois was mentally unfit to be tried on charges in the 2005 shooting. But the staff at a federal prison hospital in North Carolina concluded they restored his competency.

Bourgeois, who is white, allegedly wounded at least one of the three black men he fired at with a shotgun.

 

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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