Defense seeks new competency ruling in Jose Tovar murder case

Jose Tovar’s murder case may once again stop short of a trial after defense attorney Ned Bjornstad asked Buena Vista County District Court to find him incompetent and stay the June 16 trial date. If Judge Nancy Whittenburg agrees, it would be at least the fourth time the case has been pushed back into a competency fight instead of moving toward a verdict in the 2006 killing of Miguel Tovar.

Bjornstad, of Spirit Lake, asked the court to direct the Buena Vista County Attorney’s Office to begin civil commitment proceedings so Tovar can be assigned counsel as an incapacitated adult. The filing says the request rests on Tovar’s mental-health records, observations from family members, prior incompetency findings, observations from defense expert Luis Rosell, and Bjornstad’s own observations during May 29 depositions. Bjornstad told the newspaper it is a sad case that began 20 years ago. The county attorney’s office had not responded to the defense request.

Tovar has been in state custody since February 2006, when Storm Lake police arrested him after prosecutors said he murdered his 21-year-old brother and attacked his parents with a knife. He was charged with attempted murder, first-degree murder, willful injury and related misdemeanors. The current motion comes after a long record of legal reversals. In January 2007, Judge John Duffy found Tovar incompetent to stand trial because psychoactive disorders impaired his ability to understand the charges. At least three times after that, psychiatrists later found him competent, only for him to refuse treatment and fall back into incompetency.

That cycle has already consumed years of court time and public money. In April 2013, Judge Don Courtney described the case as having an “extensive procedural history” and wrote that Tovar had repeatedly fallen back into incompetency over the previous seven years. In December 2023, Whittenburg found him competent after reviewing an evaluation from Dr. Arnold Anderson of the state forensic hospital in Oakdale. In December 2025, the murder trial was pushed into 2026 after Bjornstad said competency reports from the State Forensic Hospital at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Oakdale had not been released, and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office did not object to the delay.

Iowa law requires a competency hearing within 14 days after notice and directs the court to decide whether competency has been restored or whether the defendant remains incompetent. If competency is restored, the criminal case resumes. If restoration is unlikely within a reasonable time, the state may start civil commitment or other commitment proceedings. The law also limits placement for an incompetent defendant, generally to 18 months from the original incompetency ruling or the maximum term of confinement for the offense, whichever comes first.

For Miguel Tovar’s family, the repeated findings and relapses mean the case remains suspended between criminal responsibility and mental-health intervention. For Buena Vista County, it means more court time, more taxpayer expense and another test of whether a murder case that has followed the community for two decades can ever reach a final resolution.