Sanity tests have been ordered for Dave Valler who is facing trial on two counts of sales and possession of grass and for conspiring to dynamite several public facilities.
The police and prosecutor consider Valler to be the ringleader of the eight persons charged with the Detroit area bombings last year which hit police stations and cars, a draft board, the Ann Arbor CIA office and a research institute.
All of the alleged bombers have been bound over for trial, but a trial date has not been set.
Recorder’s Court Judge Samuel Olsen ordered the tests at the request of one of Valler’s court-appointed attorneys, Quenda M. Behler.
Her petition to Olsen read in part At this point, the defendant’s condition has deteriorated to where he is not competent to aid in his defense or to fully understand the nature and the extent of the proceedings taking place.
Olsen granted the request and has allowed a month for completion of the tests.
In other bombing news, two Detroit union officials are on trial in Chicago on charges stemming from the 1963 bombing of a Canadian freighter and railroad tracks in a labor dispute.
The government is contending that the bombings and the shooting into two homes were part of a conspiracy by the Canadian branch of the Seafarer’s Union against the Upper Great Lakes Shipping Company.
Related
See “Valler Cops Plea,” FE #79, May 15-28, 1969.