Attorneys Argue Appeal Of Condemned Murderer

The attorney initially appointed to defend condemned murderer James Edward Wood actually contributed to Wood’s decisions to plead guilty and not fight the death penalty, his appellate lawyer contends.

Rolf Kehne of Boise said Pocatello lawyer Monte Whittier never even tried to convince Wood to assert his constitutional rights after being charged with the July 1993 abduction, murder and subsequent sexual molestation and dismemberment of 11-year-old Jeralee Underwood of Pocatello.

“He was trying to speed Mr. Wood to the death penalty from the get-go,” Kehne told the Idaho Supreme Court on Wednesday during arguments to overturn Wood’s sentence.

The court will issue its opinion later on the appeal from a career criminal whom the sentencing judge called “a coldblooded, pitiless slayer.”

Jeralee, whose parents attended Wednesday’s hearing, was kidnapped while collecting from customers on her newspaper delivery route. Wood was arrested a week later and led authorities to her remains, which he had thrown into the Snake River in Idaho Falls.

Wood, who turned 49 on Monday, repeatedly confessed to investigators and the news media, and Justice Gerald Schroeder asked Kehne what Whittier could have done to protect his client when “Wood was determined to admit this crime.”

Kehne said a deeply depressed Wood “sure wanted to talk about the bad things he’d done,” but that did not mean he was willing to give up his rights to due process of law. And on more than one occasion, the record makes it clear that “Monte is trying to talk him out of asserting his rights.”

But Deputy Attorney General Lynn Thomas urged the high court to uphold the sentence ordered in January 1994 by then-6th District Judge Lynn Winmill - now a federal judge. Thomas argued that Whittier did his duty as a defense counsel and Wood made his decisions himself.

There is no evidence “that Mr. Wood was simply being dragged along in these matters by personal despair,” he said.

In fact, “Mr. Wood was acting in a very aggressive and forthright way in preventing the development” of his defense, Thomas said, and Whittier should not be blamed for not being able to save “a case his client had already destroyed.”

He also rejected arguments that Winmill should have disqualified himself from hearing the case because of a conflict of interest. Kehne said that conflict was due to the judge’s “very close relationship with the victim’s parents,” who attended the same church as Winmill.

But Kehne pressed hardest on his argument that a defense attorney “has a duty to encourage his client that there is hope,” and Whittier offered no such encouragement as Wood pleaded guilty and at one point filed papers to forego appeals and expedite his execution.