PORT ANGELES — A status hearing set Friday for a 17-year-old girl accused of killing her newborn baby is expected to determine when and how the case will proceed.
The hearing, set for 1:30 p.m. in Clallam County Superior Court, was originally scheduled July 16.
The court will hear the results of a mental health evaluation of Lauryn Last, who is charged with second-degree murder in the Dec. 30, 2008 death of her newborn boy.
The Port Angeles girl was 16 when she was charged as an adult Jan. 2, 2009, with first-degree murder — a charge later reduced to second-degree murder, the maximum sentence for which is 18 years and four months.
The mental health evaluation will help determine whether Last’s statements to police about the death of her newborn may be used against her during trial.
Clallam County prosecutors had requested the evaluation to determine Last’s mental state at the time of the baby’s death and when she spoke with Port Angeles police officers about it in January 2009.
The question is if she was capable of understanding her rights to be silent and to have an attorney when she spoke to police.
Last — who was impregnated by a 37-year-old man in Colorado who is now imprisoned for sexual assault on a child — waived her right to have an attorney present during the police interrogation.
Her trial had been set originally for June 7, but all court proceedings were halted last month until results of the hearing are determined.
Last is now living with a relative on her own recognizance.
The infant was full-term and died by drowning, according to an autopsy.
The infant’s body was placed in an alley trash can, later taken to the city’s waste transfer station and shipped to a waste station in Tacoma.
There investigators found the body in a 30-ton trash container.
