Convicted man consents to legal help
Acting as his own attorney, Bryan Montez James told a jury last week that he had no alibi for charges that he attempted to murder two men. Then he invited jurors to “get at it.”
“Whatever decision you-all do, I’m still going to hold my head up high regardless,” said the 24-year-old defendant, whose nickname is Squirrel.
This week, though, Squirrel had his tail between his knees.
Convicted of two counts of attempted first-degree murder and facing a prison term that could exceed 40 years, James had lost enthusiasm for do-it-yourself lawyering. So he decided Friday to give his stand-by assistant public defender a try.
“Had a change of heart?” Spokane County Superior Court Judge Robert Austin asked.
“Yeah,” James chuckled. “I was incompetent.”
James said he had a “breakdown in communication” with the first assistant public defender assigned to him, Steve Reich. Assistant Public Defender Stephen Heintz was assigned to replace Reich, but James said he felt “kind of like forced to proceed by myself to do trial and what-not.”
“I don’t trust nobody from the public defender’s office because, you know, they work around each other all day,” James said. “They’re friends, so I figured that was kind of a conflict of interest in itself.”
Now, James said, “Seeing what happened, I have no choice but to take counsel.”
He said he was ready to accept representation from Heintz, who sat silently beside James throughout his trial, ready to step in if asked.
Heintz immediately began trying to fill the hole James had dug, but it’s a formidable task. Before trial, two judges questioned James extensively and repeatedly to make sure he understood and accepted the responsibility for representing himself. Generally, the law cuts no slack for defendants who represent themselves.
James was to have been sentenced Friday, but Austin postponed sentencing until Aug. 1 and scheduled a hearing on June 24 so Heintz can argue for a new trial.
As things stand, James is guilty of two counts of attempted first-degree murder of Richard Payne and Nicholas Schelin in a drive-by shooting about 3:20 a.m. on June 27 last year.
Payne and Schelin said they were walking in the 2600 block of North Crestline when James drove alongside them, pointed a pistol and said, “Hey, homies.” Then, the victims said, James fired about a half-dozen rounds, hitting Payne in the thigh and Schelin in the arm and side.
In an unrelated case, James is to stand trial next month on charges of first-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
A co-defendant in that Nov. 16 home-invasion crime, 41-year-old Robert Tracy “Shorty” Spencer, faces the same charges as James, plus first-degree kidnapping, first-degree promoting prostitution and second-degree assault.
Witnesses said James accompanied Spencer to an apartment at 128 N. Division, where Spencer had attempted to force a woman to let him be her pimp. Spencer allegedly attacked 40-year-old James A. Johnston, who had defended the woman, and James pulled out a pistol and shot Johnston to death while he wrestled with Spencer.