VENTURA : Mental Evaluation Due in Baby’s Death

A Ventura Superior Court judge appointed a psychiatrist and a psychologist Wednesday to evaluate whether a farm worker is mentally competent to stand trial on charges of murdering her newborn child in a toilet and attempted murder of another baby last year.

Judge Frederick A. Jones denied a motion by Assistant Public Defender Jean Farley to appoint a Spanish-speaking psychologist who had worked before with Maria Francisca Jimenez Sanchez to conduct the evaluation.

Jones instead chose psychologist Allan S. Tagliaferri and psychiatrist Donald Patterson from a court-approved list of mental health experts. Tagliaferri does not speak Spanish and the woman speaks no English.

Farley said the list includes other Spanish-speaking psychiatrists and psychologists.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol J. Nelson said the court has not ascertained their fluency and prefers to assign an interpreter whose language skills are court-certified.

Nelson said Jones agreed to consider the motion again when he had more background on the psychologist Farley suggested.

The doctors’ evaluations are due Oct. 25, when Jones will determine whether Sanchez is mentally competent to stand trial.

If she is found competent, Sanchez will face two separate trials on charges of murder and attempted murder.

In one case, she is accused of throwing her newborn into a portable toilet in Saticoy on July 28.

The infant drowned. In the other case, she is accused to trying to flush a baby down a toilet at her Oxnard home after giving birth in May, 1990. The child, now in a foster home, has permanent brain damage.

If she is not found competent, she will be transferred from Ventura County Jail to a state mental hospital or other facility. Sanchez is being held on $250,000 cash bail.

Farley said Sanchez, who is believed to be 21, had worked in onion fields in the past five months that she has lived in the country.

At the woman’s arraignment Monday, Farley requested that her client be evaluated before facing charges.