BURLINGTON — A sentencing hearing for a Burlington man convicted late last year of killing his wife and seriously injuring her mother with a meat cleaver remains in limbo, with lingering questions about his competency.
During a status conference in the case Thursday in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington, attorneys reported that Aita Gurung was set to undergo an evaluation on Thursday and then they would be awaiting a report from the evaluator.
“It looks like Mr. Gurung is being evaluated by the neutral evaluator as we speak,” Judge John Pacht said during the brief hearing.
Assistant Attorney General Sophie Stratton, a prosecutor in the case, was then asked by the judge if the prosecution would be seeking a separate evaluation by its own expert.
“We’re going to wait and see,” the prosecutor said, as she would like to review the neutral evaluator’s report before deciding.
The judge did not provide a timeline for when he expected the neutral evaluator to complete the evaluation. He said he expected the review to be conducted “thoroughly,” and “with all deliberate speed.”
The scheduling and completing of competency evaluations of criminal defendants has been a challenge for the court system for some time, worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In November, a jury convicted Gurung, 40, of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in a trial that lasted nearly four weeks, and in which his attorneys raised an insanity defense. The jury deliberated for about 24 hours before returning the guilty verdicts. He faces 35 years to life in prison at sentencing.
Attorney Sandra Lee, a public defender representing Gurung, told Pacht at a hearing in February that her client’s mental state had worsened since he was sent to jail after his conviction. He had previously been receiving mental health care at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin.
Since shortly after his conviction, he has been housed at the Southern State Correctional Center in Springfield.
Lee said in February that, in conversations with Gurung, she noticed a “decrease in his mood” and she had difficulty communicating with him, even through a Nepali interpreter. Gurung, who is Bhutanese, speaks Nepali.
Gurung was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his 32-year-old wife, Yogeswari Khadka, at their home in Burlington on Oct. 12, 2017. Gurung was also found guilty of attempted second-degree murder for seriously injuring his mother-in-law, 54-year-old Thulsa Rimal, in the same attack.
During the trial, the prosecution contended that Gurung had a history of abusing alcohol and physically assaulting his wife. The defense countered that Gurung was not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers presented evidence to the jury that Gurung had been released from the University of Vermont Medical Center less than two hours before carrying out the attack.
After a verdict was reached, nine of the 12 jurors signed a letter to the judge. The letter stated that, although during the trial it wasn’t proven that Gurung met the test for insanity, it was their “unanimous opinion” that his mental disease “significantly influenced” the events leading to the charges against him.
The case was one of a trio that set off a political firestorm when Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George decided in 2019 to drop charges against Gurung and two other defendants in high-profile cases when she said she could not rebut insanity defenses based on expert opinions.
Gov. Phil Scott called on then-Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan to review the case, and the state’s top prosecutor refiled charges in all three cases that had been dismissed, including Gurung’s.
