Bombing Suspects’ Lawyers Will Seek To Postpone Trial
A federal judge today will hear a last-minute plea by defense attorneys to postpone next week’s trial of three North Idaho men accused of domestic terrorism.
Charles H. Barbee, Robert S. Berry and Verne Jay Merrell are scheduled to stand trial Feb. 18 on 12 charges stemming from the Spokane Valley bank robberies and bombings.
Federal defender Roger Peven said in legal papers filed Monday that he needs more time to test a pair of blue jeans seized by FBI agents at Barbee’s rented home near Sagle, Idaho.
The jeans reportedly have wear patterns or markings that appear to match pants worn by a masked, armed robber whose picture was captured by a bank surveillance camera.
Prosecutors are expected to argue that any tests with the jeans can be done visually, in a matter of minutes, and that should be no reason to delay the trial.
“We’ll be ready to go to trial,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice said Monday.
The three men, who will be tried together, are accused of bombing a Spokesman-Review office, bank and Planned Parenthood office, and robbing the bank twice. No one was injured during the April 1 and July 12 crimes.
The defendants have demanded their constitutional right to a speedy trial. They have been in jail without bond for five months.
In seeking the delay, Peven said he has 5,000 FBI documents to review.
“I have not had adequate time to read this material and understand it to the extent that would allow me to be prepared for the trial as scheduled,” Peven said in his motion.
The defense attorney also said Barbee’s right to a fair trial is jeopardized by recent news reports outlining similarities between the Spokane case and last summer’s unsolved Olympics bombing.
Peven said the “current saturation of news reports trying to connect the defendants to the Atlanta Olympic bombing should end when the FBI has had a chance to investigate these defendants.”
The investigation will show that Barbee was not involved in the Olympics bombing, Peven predicted.
In a related development, a North Idaho woman listed in court documents as an alibi witness for Merrell said she certainly can’t provide an excuse for his whereabouts.
Elizabeth Willey, who lives near Sandpoint, was indignant that she was listed as an alibi witness for Merrell by his attorney, Aaron Lowe of Spokane.
“I refute the fact that someone is saying that I have an alibi for Jay Merrell,” Willey said.
“I do not have an alibi for him or his whereabouts on July 12,” she said, “and nobody talked to me at all about that.”
Willey, who owns a small business with her husband, said they have known Merrell for about eight years since he moved next to them on rural property on Rapid Lightning Creek Road north of Sandpoint.
She described Merrell as “a cordial neighbor” but said she doesn’t share his Christian Identity, white-separatist religious beliefs.
, DataTimes