Chi Cao was stabbed to death<\/a> as she was doing her morning exercises.<\/p>\nSan Diego Police identified and arrested Hamala shortly after the attack, and he pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, but nearly 3 years later, he has still not stood trial for murder.<\/p>\n
The case was set to go to trial when Hamala\u2019s public defender said she had doubts that her client was competent to stand trial. Bridget Rubin told the court that a new clinical interpretation of Hamala\u2019s mental status may indicate he\u2019s not mentally prepared for the rigors of a trial.<\/p>\n
Rubin asked the judge to suspend the case, pending the outcome of a new forensic analysis of her client\u2019s mental state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is now the third time the defense has declared a doubt as to the defendant\u2019s competency,\u201d said deputy district attorney Amelia Diedrich.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor asked the judge to move forward with the murder trial since Hamala has previously been found to be competent to assist in his defense.<\/p>\n
Judge Theodore Weathers ruled in favor of the defense, ordering a new examination of Hamala\u2019s mental health and putting the murder trial on hold.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNBC 7’s Dave Summers heard from family and friends of Chi Cao at a vigil celebrating her life.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Cao\u2019s family is devastated by the delay, according to the prosecutor.\u00a0Cao\u2019s grandson, Zesson Tran, called this latest delay both exhausting and frustrating.<\/p>\n
Months before she was killed, Cao \u2014 an immigrant from Vietnam \u2014 had just become a U.S. citizen. She was proud to be an American.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandma was always pushing for justice,\u201d Tran said after NBC 7 asked whether the latest delay in Cao’s case would have upset her. \u201cShe loved America. She came here because she wanted to find justice in her own life, to liberate herself and find that freedom. So us being unable to find that quick justice is something that she would also find very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamala\u2019s mental competency hearing is set for May 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the third time in almost as many years, the competency of a man awaiting trial on murder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[15006,3552,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-233290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-city-heights","9":"tag-crime-and-courts","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}