Silas Duane Boston, a former Sacramento man charged with killing two British tourists in the Caribbean nearly four decades ago, has been rehospitalized and may be gravely ill and unable to face trial, his lawyers told a federal judge Wednesday.
Boston, who turned 76 last month, has drawn international media attention since he was arrested in December at a nursing home in the rural Northern California community of Paradise and later charged with two counts of maritime murder in an unsolved case involving two tourists.
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The defense filed a “declaration of doubt” that Boston was competent to face trial and Negin suggested in court that his health is fast deteriorating, impairing him both physically and mentally.
“The law requires him to be mentally present” during court proceedings, Mendez responded. “If he is in and out” of awareness “in terms of his medication, he may be physically present but mentally he is not there.”
Mendez said he is prepared to consider a defense motion to order a medical competency evaluation for Boston. But the challenge is that the defendant may have to be airlifted to a medical facility in the federal prison system as far away as Illinois or North Carolina for an appropriate evaluation.
Negin said Boston is in no shape for such an excursion.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutor Matthew Segal said he is telling witnesses who were due to travel out from the United Kingdom to hold off for now.