Duncan wants new trial venue

“Massive pretrial publicity” and community hostility mean murder suspect Joseph Edward Duncan III cannot get a fair trial in Kootenai County, his attorneys said Tuesday in applying for a change of venue.

Public Defender John Adams also filed a motion to suppress statements Duncan allegedly made following his arrest and another motion saying the state’s 1982 repeal of the insanity defense was unconstitutional.

“The publicity in this case has been ubiquitous,” Adams wrote.

He said the court must consider how news media attention may have prejudiced the community and the potential jury pool.

“Juror assurances of impartiality mean little when daily news repeatedly describes the ‘facts of the case,’ ” Adams wrote.

Duncan, 42, pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping for the May 2005 bludgeoning deaths of Brenda Groene; her son, 13-year-old Slade Groene; and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Federal charges are pending for the kidnapping of Brenda Groene’s youngest children, then-8-year-old Shasta Groene and 9-year-old Dylan Groene, and for Dylan’s subsequent murder.

Adams did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday. Prosecutor Bill Douglas declined to comment on Adams’ motion for a change of venue and other motions filed Tuesday, the deadline for pretrial motions.

In the motion to suppress, Adams asks to exclude from trial statements Duncan allegedly made, including those obtained during a meeting with the jail chaplain and later in a four-hour interview with FBI agents.

A U.S. Justice Department source told The Spokesman-Review in August that Duncan was “talking and telling stories” during the FBI interview and provided enough information to implicate himself in the 1996 deaths of two young Seattle girls.

Fingerprints obtained by the FBI were used to link Duncan to the 1997 kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez of Riverside, Calif.

In the motion, Adams said Duncan repeatedly asked for his attorney that day, but Adams was out of town and couldn’t be reached. When he received the message later that evening that Duncan wanted to see him, Adams said, he called the jail, passed along his cell phone number and said to let Duncan know he was available.

Adams said that Duncan asked jail officials moments later to contact him but was told by the jail sergeant that the public defender’s office was closed. At that point, Adams said, Duncan told jail employees he changed his mind and would speak with FBI agents. He spent four hours talking with the FBI, according to the motion.

Adams also seeks to suppress statements Duncan made to police officers at his arrest, as he was booked into jail and in conversations with Chaplain Robert Smalley and social worker Chrystal Hodgson.

Adams said statements to Smalley and Hodgson “are privileged communication made to a clergyman and to a licensed counselor/social worker acting as an agent of the police” and that Duncan wasn’t read his Miranda rights.

The motion said sheriff’s Lt. Dan Soumas visited Duncan the day after his arrest and asked Duncan if he wanted to speak to a member of the clergy because he was “quite emotional.” Smalley, the chaplain, then met with Duncan in a room at the jail, the motion said.

Adams said that Smalley later sent a report on that visit to detectives.

Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said certain information is exempt from client-chaplain privilege. Examples include information that an inmate may hurt himself or others, and information about homicides and child abuse.

Adams said in the motion that the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department asked Hodgson, a mental health worker with the state Department of Health and Welfare, to visit Duncan at the jail. No notice was given to Duncan’s attorneys, Adams said.

She reportedly filed the report with the prosecutor’s office the next day.

Tuesday’s filings also included an objection by Adams to Prosecutor Bill Douglas’ request that the jury be allowed to visit the scene of the triple slayings at Wolf Lodge, just east of Coeur d’Alene.

Adams is objecting on the grounds that the house has been altered since the killings.

After the Sheriff’s Department signed off on the property in August and released it to Ralph McKenzie, father of murder victim Mark McKenzie, a biohazard cleanup crew removed the blood-stained floors and walls.

Adams said the state has filmed the crime scene and also has hundreds of pictures.