Another pre-trial hearing was held for the Steven Wiggins case on Wednesday afternoon, June 23rd. This hearing was held to discuss expert witnesses that will possibly be called upon throughout the trial. More specifically, these expert witnesses have a medical background in mental health and neurology.
The defense began by arguing that in order to properly protect Wiggins’ fifth and sixth amendment rights, there has to be a limited amount of access to information conducted by the expert witnesses.
The prosecution on the other hand, disagreed and stated that the state needs to have this information in order to rebut the defenses’ findings
Judge Wolfe then asked several questions before he went into a brief recess.
After the recess, Judge Wolfe declared several statements. The first began with the fact that this case has been pending for nearly three years already. Due to this, Wolfe declared that the prosecution must know which expert witnesses are going to testify out of the six by the first of July.
Along with this, Wolfe also stated that the state in return needs to try and examine Wiggins with their expert witness within ten days after given the report; however, they can still apply and ask the court for more time if necessary.
The next statement that Wolfe gave declared that the information must remain confidential and will only be given access to the prosecutions’ expert witness to make their report. Additionally, if their expert witness absolutely has another doctor to confirm their findings, then its mandatory to ask permission from the court first.
After Judge Wolfe concluded with his ruling, he set the next pre-trial hearing date for Tuesday, June 29th at 8:00am.