In January, a Pownal man was charged with first-degree murder in the slashing death of a 26-year-old woman in downtown Bennington.
The defendant, Darren Pronto, 33, pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. The relationship between Pronto and the victim, Emily Hamann, remains unclear as well as his motive for the alleged killing.
In October, a psychologist with the Vermont Department of Mental Health found Pronto not mentally competent to stand trial.
The Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office is now asking the court to order a second competency evaluation given what it says are “readily identifiable errors” in the first one.
“What we’re asking for is really the opportunity to remedy an inherently flawed evaluation and to put resources to this very important case that the Legislature intended us to have,” Deputy State’s Attorney Jared Bianchi told Superior Judge Cortland Corsones on Wednesday.
In an earlier court filing, the prosecutor said the first court-ordered evaluation by John Donnelly “suffers from shortcomings and irregularities,” and he “neglected” evaluative tools that will assist in determining Pronto’s competency to stand trial.
“These matters can only be remedied by another evaluation,” Bianchi wrote in a Nov. 8 memorandum.
Bianchi said the state has retained a forensic psychologist, Claire Gilligan, to conduct another evaluation of Pronto.
Defense attorney Fred Bragdon objected to the second evaluation. At the hearing Wednesday, he said that on the issue of “reasonableness,” the request would violate his client’s rights under provisions of the U.S. Constitution and the Vermont Constitution.
His written objection to the state’s request is sealed from public view, court records show.
Pronto declined to appear at the hearing. The remote proceeding showed an empty seat in a room at the Southern State Correctional Facility where Pronto is detained.
Bragdon also brought up a Superior Court case from Chittenden County, where he said the judge ruled two weeks ago against a subsequent evaluation request based on reasonableness.
Bianchi countered that the ruling pertained to a third evaluation, rather than a second one, which he said a recent revision in state law afforded prosecutors.
Change in state law
State law allows defendants to find their own experts when issues of mental competency come up, but prosecutors had been barred from doing the same. Some victims in criminal cases and their allies criticized this as “expert shopping” by defendants in order to evade prosecution.
Hamman’s mother, Kelly Carroll, was among the people who lobbied for updating the law and allowing prosecutors to also seek their own mental health expert. This became possible under Senate Bill 3, “an act relating to competency to stand trial and insanity as a defense,” which the governor signed into law in June.
Carroll took on this advocacy after learning that in an earlier criminal case, Pronto had been found incompetent to stand trial in 2018. He was ordered hospitalized under the Department of Mental Health and eventually was released.
Public safety officials did not know Pronto was back in the community — until witnesses and surveillance cameras reportedly spotted him attacking Hamann with a knife in downtown Bennington the morning of Jan. 18.
“I’m happy to see that the state has requested their own expert to evaluate Pronto,” Carroll said when asked for comment after the hearing Wednesday. “I hope that the judge orders it.”
She added of Pronto: “I am very happy that it appears he will be staying at Southern State for the holidays.”
Corsones told the attorneys he will issue a written decision on the second evaluation request as quickly as he can. The final decision on whether Pronto is mentally competent to stand trial rests with the judge.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that the first evaluation of Darren Pronto, conducted by John Donnelly, was ordered by the court.
