State v. Linda Henning · D-202-CR-2001-02063 · Second Judicial District Court, Bernalillo County
Henning Competency Timeline
How the question of Linda Henning's competency moved through the court record, from a motion filed before her 2002 trial to the two orders Judge Cindy Leos filed on Oct. 23, 2026. This is what we know at this point. Each entry shows its source, and entries we have not yet checked against the original filings are marked.
By Mark Horner, who has covered the Girly Chew Hossencofft case since 1999
Published Oct. 27, 2026
Question 1 · Looking backWas she competent to stand trial in 2002?Decided Oct. 23, 2026
No. Judge Leos found Henning "was not competent to stand trial at the time of her trial," vacated all convictions and granted a new trial on all counts.
Question 2 · Looking aheadIs she competent to stand trial now?Open
Not yet decided. A new evaluation was ordered the same day. The report is due within 30 days, and a competency hearing is to follow within 45 days of the order.
Plain talk · What is a habeas petition?“Habeas corpus” is Latin for “you shall have the body.”
Historically it was an order to bring a prisoner before a judge so the court could decide whether the person was being held lawfully. Today a habeas petition is how someone already convicted asks a court to look again at whether the conviction was fair. Henning's petition argued she should never have been tried while she was not competent, and that her lawyer was wrong to drop the competency question.
Most habeas petitions are denied, and Henning's earlier ones were: a state petition in 2007 and a federal petition that ended in 2010. This one, filed in 2018, was granted after an evidentiary hearing. A granted petition does not mean a finding of innocence. It means the 2002 trial did not meet the legal standard, so the convictions are set aside and the case can be tried again.
27 years at a glance
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Competency momentCourt rulingOther eventDeadline ahead2018 habeas petition pending, eight years
Court order text of the orderDocket an entry on the court docket listHearing Mark Horner's recording of the Oct. 23 hearingNews news reportTo verify earlier research, not yet checked
People in this record
What we don't have yet
Dr. Sara Millspaugh's report, the date of the evidentiary hearing where she testified, and which side called her.
Whether the State presented its own expert at the habeas hearing, and what that expert concluded.
The trial-era evaluations by Dr. Thomas Thompson, Dr. Park Dietz and Dr. Joel Haycock, including what each concluded and when.
The original motion to determine competency and the 2002 notice withdrawing it. The motion appears to predate this case number, which opened with the July 2001 indictment.
The Corrections Department's diagnostic report from late 2002, ordered before sentencing.
The April 2025 motion to determine competency and its May 2025 withdrawal, including who filed them.
Two other Oct. 23, 2026 orders on the docket: the order staying proceedings and the order setting conditions of release.
Whether the State will retry the case. Prosecutors had not said as of Oct. 23.
Documents
The court records behind this timeline. Click a numbered source tag in any entry to open the document at that page. Personal identifiers are redacted; nothing else is changed.
Other sources, not posted
Mark Horner's recording of the Oct. 23, 2026 hearing, posted with audio in Judge Orders Linda Henning Released After 27 Years. Quotes and timestamps come from a machine transcript checked by hand, not an official court transcript.