Lawyer says teen may be fit for trial

A teenager from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, accused of killing a classmate in January, may be on the brink of regaining his memory of the alleged crime and could ultimately be fit to stand trial, his lawyer said yesterday.

Jonathan Shapiro made the comments less than two weeks after he declared in court that John Odgren was not fit for trial because he could not remember what happened the morning of Jan. 19, when he allegedly stabbed James Alenson. But since that time, Shapiro said, Odgren has begun meeting with mental health specialists in an effort to recover from his amnesia.

Shapiro said the possibility that Odgren's memory will improve prompted him on Monday to withdraw a request for a mental competency hearing.

"The situation is not clear enough at this point as to the extent and permanence of the amnesia," Shapiro said.

His decision to drop his request for a competency hearing was also made after prosecutors insisted that they be allowed to hire their own psychologist, who could conduct an extensive psychological review of Odgren and have access to all of the teenager's medical and psychiatric records. The results of such an examination could be made public.

The Middlesex district attorney's office declined to speculate on why Shapiro dropped the request for a competency hearing. Shapiro asked for such a hearing after Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein said on March 26 that a preliminary psychological review showed Odgren was competent to stand trial.

By law, defendants are not required to have full recall of an alleged crime in order to be deemed competent to face charges. They can be ruled mentally competent to stand trial as long as they understand the legal proceedings, including the charges they face.

A spokesman for the district attorney's office, Corey Welford, said the defense's decision to drop the competency hearing "further supports our position to the court that he is competent to stand trial for what was the planned, unprovoked knife attack of a defenseless and innocent James Alenson."

Prosecutors have previously said that on the morning of Jan. 19, Odgren, with his clothes stained with blood, told shocked school staffers, "I did it! I did it!"

Defense lawyers who are not involved in the case suggested that Odgren's lawyer may have dropped the competency hearing request to avoid having the teenager exposed to a full examination by psychologists hired by the prosecutors.

But it may also have been motivated by a desire to keep the student focused on his memory recall work, said Robert Griffin, a criminal defense lawyer and former Suffolk prosecutor. Griffin said Shapiro may not have wanted any disruption from an outside psychologist at this sensitive time.

In a separate legal filing, Odgren's lawyer asserted that two out of three prescription drugs Odgren has been taking were not administered properly when the teenager moved last month from Westborough State Hospital to the juvenile facility at the Plymouth House of Correction. Shapiro said Odgren was taking two psychotropic drugs, Trileptal and Concerta, as well an antibiotic, Keflex, for a toe infection.

Shapiro has repeatedly said that Odgren -- who has Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism, and hyperactivity disorder -- was on several medications while enrolled at Lincoln-Sudbury, but did not name them.

Shapiro declined yesterday to say how long the teenager has been on Trileptal, an antiseizure drug often used as a mood stabilizer, and Concerta, often used to treat attention deficit disorder, and if they were the ones he was on over the past year.

Odgren, a resident of Princeton, had been in at least five schools over the past five years. He enrolled in a special needs program last September at Lincoln-Sudbury, and school officials said he had exhibited no previous signs of behavior that they believed posed a threat to other students.

He is accused of bringing a knife to school Jan. 19 and fatally stabbing Alenson, a freshman, in the school bathroom. School officials say the two teenagers did not know each other.

Odgren's next court hearing is scheduled for April 30, Shapiro said.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.