Wichita ? As the case of the man accused of being the BTK serial killer moves through the legal system, two issues are likely to come up: Is Dennis Rader competent to stand trial, and can he get a fair trial in a city shaken by the killings for three decades?

Rader’s public defenders aren’t yet talking publicly about a strategy, but lawyers and others with long experience in the city’s legal community say neither an insanity defense nor a change-of-venue request are likely to get much traction.

The BTK killer, whose nickname stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” was suspected of eight deaths beginning in 1974, but since Rader’s arrest last week authorities have linked two more victims to the serial killer. Rader was charged Tuesday with 10 counts of first-degree murder and is being held on a $10 million bond.

Rader, who is being represented by Sedgwick County’s public defenders office, has three attorneys assigned to his case: Charles Stephen Osburn, Jama Mitchell and Sarah McKinnon. They have not returned repeated calls from the Associated Press for comment.

Fair trial?

But legal observers agree one likely issue that will surface will be whether Rader can get a fair trial in a city that has lived in fear of the BTK killer. Media coverage has been intense, particularly in Wichita.

Rader’s arrest was jubilantly announced before the families of the BTK victims in a nationally televised news conference by top federal, state and local law enforcement officials. Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams set off applause when he declared: “The bottom line: BTK is arrested.”

“It would be hard for anybody to get a fair trial if it is preceded by an hourlong publicly broadcast infomercial about law enforcement opinions about the accuser’s guilt,” said Wichita attorney Dan Monnat.

Defense attorneys are expected to file a motion requesting the trial be moved out of Wichita. But that tactic has not worked in other high profile cases in this city — such as the trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr.

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The Carr brothers were convicted by a Sedgwick County jury on charges from a December 2000 crime spree in Wichita that left five of six victims dead. They also were convicted of raping some victims and forcing them to engage in sex acts with each other.

Jay Greeno, the attorney who represented Reginald Carr in that case, said he doubted defense attorneys would get the trial moved: “I don’t recall a case ever having a change of venue here.”

Mental competency

The question of whether Rader is mentally competent is more complex. Competency doesn’t necessarily mean insane or mentally ill, Greeno said, only that the defendant must be able to understand what is happening and be able to assist in his defense.

Howard Brodsky, a Wichita psychologist who has been involved in several thousand competency hearings, said attorneys often use them to determine whether an insanity defense would be useful.

Insanity defenses are also often used to humanize to jurors defendants who are accused of heinous crimes, he said. “The vast majority of insanity defenses do not work in front of the jury,” he said. “Sedgwick County, in particular, has a low rate of juries buying insanity defenses,” Brodsky said.

Sedgwick County District Judge Gregory Waller has set March 15 for Rader’s preliminary hearing, although the district attorney’s office said it expects the hearing to be postponed.

Rader also could waive his right to a preliminary hearing, in effect acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to proceed to trial.

Typically, however, preliminary hearings are not waived, said Georgia Cole, spokeswoman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office. That means prosecutors will lay out in a sort of “mini-trial” enough evidence to meet the minimal standard of probable cause needed to proceed to trial.

If there is a trial, one issue that’s likely to come up is the quality of the DNA from 30-year-old crime scenes.

“The samples that were taken were collected before DNA evidence was being used,” Greeno said. “You have to look at the possibility of degradation of samples, the possibility of cross contamination

As it now stands, prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty because all the crimes Rader is charged with were committed before 1994, when Kansas passed its capital punishment law.