Prosecutors, Defense Seek Sentencing Delay For Duncan

SPOKANE — Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Joseph Duncan federal case in Boise, Idaho have filed requests to have his sentencing, scheduled for early next year, to be delayed.

Prosecutors with the US Attorney’s Office in Boise filed a motion to continue the case until April 7, 2008. After Duncan’s change of plea hearing on Monday, Judge Edward Lodge set sentencing in the case to begin on January 28th.

Duncan pled guilty Monday to 10 counts in federal court stemming from the 2005 abductions of Dylan and Shasta Groene from their family’s Wolf Lodge Bay home and the subsequent murder of Dylan, whose remains were found in a remote campsite in western Montana.

Duncan previously confessed to the murders of Dylan and Shasta’s mother Brenda Groene, older brother Slade, and Brenda’s boyfriend Mark McKenzie.

The prosecutors’ motion to continue the sentencing phase of the case also revealed that the sole survivor of the murders, Shasta Groene, will not have to testify during Duncan’s sentencing. Prosecutors instead will use statements she made previously to investigators instead of her testimony in court.