By Flint McColgan
Boston Herald
BOSTON — Prosecutors unsuccessfully pushed Tuesday for a new competency evaluation for an East Boston woman accused of stabbing an EMT in the back of an ambulance in 2019.
Julie Tejeda was found incompetent to stand trial during her last yearly mental competency evaluation performed in May, according to discussions at a motions hearing in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston Tuesday morning.
But prosecutor Jillian Bannister argued that the last competency evaluation was showing improvements in the defendant’s mental health under new medications — indicating that Tejeda may be getting closer to stand trial on her charges.
“As your honor is well aware, competency is fluid and in light of those medication changes, I think that a new evaluation is appropriate here,” Bannister said. She added, “I think that the most recent evaluation kind of speaks for itself in how it addresses some improvements that she’s had.”
Defense attorney Eduardo Masferrer , who argued in June to have the case dismissed as treatment is unlikely to “restore her to competency,” countered that there is no evidence of “significant change in Ms. Tejeda’s condition.”
“There is no reason to think that she’s any better today than she was four months ago unless something from a doctor says it,” Masferrer said. “There is zero reason for the court to order a new evaluation for Ms. Tejeda .”
Masferrer instead suggested that Judge James Budreau should instead request a doctor’s affidavit indicating significant changes rather than rely on arguments from “two lawyers who are not medically trained spouting off” in the courtroom.
Judge Budreau agreed, stating, “I think an affidavit needs to be filed. Something that’s going to alert me to some significant change that would change my opinion.”
He scheduled the next evaluation for March 11, 2025, unless prosecutors submit a doctor’s affidavit suggesting an earlier evaluation is in order.
Case background
Tejeda faces charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon according to her court records. Those are amended charges from earlier charges of assault to murder, two counts of assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and assault and battery on a public employee, according to previous Herald reporting.
Tejeda has long suffered from mental illness. Rachael Rollins, who was Suffolk District Attorney at the time of Tejeda’s arrest, said that the defendant had been on police radar for a few days leading up to the attack.
Prosecutors say an ambulance picked Tejeda up in East Boston on July 10, 2019, to take her to Massachusetts General Hospital for a wellness evaluation. At some point in the journey Tejeda allegedly stabbed a female EMT seven times in the abdomen and legs and pepper-sprayed the male EMT driving the ambulance when he stopped the vehicle to check on the situation in the back.
Tejeda has failed yearly mental health competency evaluations since the beginning of her case and is currently voluntarily committed to the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital — which has a correctional unit — in Jamaica Plain, according to prosecutor Bannister.
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