FARGO, N.D. - Federal prosecutors say they want an independent psychiatric exam of the man sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin in 2003.
U.S. attorneys are working to answer an appeal filed in October asking for a new trial or sentencing hearing for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., now imprisoned in Indiana. They filed a motion Thursday asking for the psychiatric exam; the document says the request is reasonable because Rodriguez "now claims his trial counsel should have raised the defense of insanity ... and that he is mentally retarded."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
