E. Idaho county considers selling land to fund retrial

ST. ANTHONY, Idaho – An eastern Idaho county may be forced to sell property to pay for the retrial of a man who served 15 years in prison for a murder but has been out on bond since last year after a federal judge ruled his civil rights were violated in the original case.

Fremont County officials say it could cost $200,000 to $300,000 to retry Rauland Grube, 43, who was convicted in 1991 of killing 15-year-old Amy Hossner in Ashton but released in 2006. Costs from a new trial would include two lawyers approved by 7th District Court Judge Darren Thompson, as well as a private investigator and experts in ballistics, tool-marking and handwriting who charge up to $100 an hour.

Fremont County commissioners are considering selling two parcels of land, one 40 acres, the other 29 acres, that could be used for farming, a gravel pit or residential development. The proceeds could cover about half the cost of a new trial and help avert a possible budget crunch that could force Fremont County to trim other services to residents, said Commissioner Paul Romrell.

“We’ll be paralyzed for several years” without extra revenue, Romrell told the Rexburg Standard-Journal.

Fremont County Prosecuting Attorney Karl Lewies didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Grube’s case illustrates the challenges small local governments can face when attempting to prosecute complicated criminal cases. The trial of Sarah Johnson, convicted in 2005 of killing her parents, cost Blaine County $1 million.

In June 1983, when Grube was 20, Hossner was found dead from a shotgun blast fired through the window of her basement bedroom in Ashton. Eight years later, Grube was convicted of first-degree murder in 7th District Court and sentenced to life in prison.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered that Grube be released or get a new trial after Winmill determined investigators had withheld a key witness at trial and that police logs had been tampered with.

Ballistics evidence was a key element in Grube’s original conviction, but it has since been disavowed by the FBI.

And former Police Chief Ed Sebek, who could testify about the log alterations, is now in prison on an unrelated crime.

The state attorney general’s office has insisted on retrying Grube, even though it was rebuked by another federal court judge earlier this year who said Grube would likely be acquitted if he were to be retried.

In January, Alex Kozinsky, who serves on a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, said Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden should consider prosecuting those in the case who handed in tainted evidence “instead of holding onto a conviction that is incredibly thin on the facts and undermined by just unspeakable misconduct.”

The case must be retried by Nov. 26.

County officials hope to meet soon with prosecutors from Wasden’s office who will be handling the case to discuss the costs of the new trial and how to keep them from escalating.