RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A West Virginia doctor should have been allowed to testify at his wife’s trial on charges that she obstructed an investigation into his health care fraud, a federal appeals court was told Thursday.

Osteopath Barton Adams of Parkersburg had been deemed mentally incompetent to assist in his own defense, but his wife’s attorney said there was no evidence that he remained incompetent when the woman’s trial began five months later.