Three mental health experts will be reviewing thousands of pages of materials to evaluate the man accused of fatally shooting three people at a Tantalus lookout last year to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial on murder and related charges.

Court-appointed experts usually evaluate a defendant to determine whether he is fit to stand trial and whether he was legally insane at the time of the crimes, but Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario went along with the defense request to direct the experts to only determine the fitness issue.

He said he will order them to report to the court 60 days after he appoints them. The judge will then hold a hearing on whether Adam Mau-Goffredo is competent to stand trial.

Mau-Goffredo's lawyer, Brook Hart, argued that the panel should only consider the fitness at this time because the experts will be reviewing some 6,000 pages of materials, including handwritten calligraphic notes by the defendant and medical reports generated from his client's past treatment.

If Mau-Goffredo is determined to be fit to proceed, he would then undergo another evaluation to determine whether he was legally insane at the time of the shooting.

Mau-Goffredo, who has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, is being held at Halawa prison.

He is charged with murdering a taxicab driver and a Kapahulu couple and robbing a nearby home before he was arrested later on the night of July 6.

The appointment of the panel suspends the criminal proceedings. No trial date has been set on Mau-Goffredo's charges of murder, robbery and related counts.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.