A federal appeals court has set an Oct. 10 hearing date to take up the case of a convicted school shooter from western Kentucky. The U.S 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will consider whether 29-year-old Michael Carneal waited too long to try and withdraw his guilty plea to killing three classmates and wounding five.
A federal judge in Paducah ruled in August 2011 that Carneal could have moved sooner to pull back the guilty plea in the 1998 attack on classmates at Heath High School near Paducah.
Carneal's attorneys say he wasn't mentally competent to plead guilty or withdraw the plea within the proscribed time limits.
Carneal is serving life in prison with a chance at parole after 25 years.