The court ruling will result in the prosecution of Lukouxs A. Brown being put on hold indefinitely. He will be returned to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Oakdale.

“We find the preponderance of the evidence shows that Brown remains incompetent to stand trial, but is making progress in regaining competency,” a three-judge panel of the court wrote in a 24-page ruling.

Attorneys for Brown filed an appeal after Wright County District Court Judge Gregg R. Rosenbladt found him competent to stand trial on June 17, 2022. In making that decision, Rosenbladt agreed with the findings of an expert witness hired by the state and set aside the findings of a team of psychiatrists from the Iowa Medical and Classification Center who had worked with Brown for months.

Brown, 29, is accused of killing Wayne Smith, 50, of Fort Dodge, on Feb. 16, 2021, in a locker room at the Prestage Foods of Iowa plant near Eagle Grove. Investigators and prosecutors said Brown cut Smith’s throat with a knife. Brown was charged with first degree murder.

His defense attorneys very quickly questioned Brown’s competency to stand trial.

In their ruling, the appellate court judges wrote that the defense attorneys reported that Brown “exhibited an abnormal thought process, stated he had been hearing voices, appeared to respond to outside stimuli that were not present in reality and stated he had previously had an inpatient hospitalization for a schizophrenia diagnosis.”

On May 17, 2021, Brown was sent to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center.

According to the recently released Court of Appeals ruling, the staff there diagnosed Brown with a major neurocognitive disorder and found him incapable of following a trial or assisting his attorneys.

In January 2022, the facility’s staff reported that he could not be restored to competency in a reasonable amount of time with any known treatments.

A hearing was held before Rosenbladt within 14 days of the facility’s report being issued. At that hearing, the judge gave prosecutors the opportunity to hire their own expert to examine Brown.

After receiving the report of the state’s expert, Rosenbladt ruled that Brown was competent to stand trial, prompting the appeal.

In their ruling, the appellate court judges sent the case back to the district court level with instructions to suspend the criminal proceedings indefinitely and send Brown back to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center.