Prosecutor rejects Duncan plea offer

Joseph Duncan says he will plead guilty to four murders, kidnapping and other crimes against a Coeur d’Alene family if he’s promised life in prison with no chance of parole. Duncan’s lawyers said Wednesday he will confess and cooperate with prosecutors even though he still could be sentenced to death in a pending federal case.

Duncan also offered to help investigators open his encrypted computer files and view pictures and videos that may be related to the case.

Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas rejected the Oct. 4 offer, which would settle the case against Duncan in the county and keep 9-year-old Shasta Groene from having to testify at trial against her alleged abductor, federal Public Defender Roger Peven said Wednesday.

Sources said Douglas rejected the deal Oct. 6, two days after the offer was made.

Shasta’s father, Steve Groene, has lobbied for a plea deal that would keep his daughter off the stand. Groene and federal prosecutors met privately with Douglas on Wednesday, even as details of the rejected plea offer were made public for the first time.

Peven said the offer Duncan made is like nothing he has seen in his 35 years as a lawyer. He said Duncan wants to spare Shasta from having to testify.

“It doesn’t change what he’s done. He can’t affect that. It does affect the future,” Peven told The Spokesman-Review.

Peven said Duncan stood to gain nothing if the deal were accepted.

“It’s not to his benefit,” he said. “There’s still a death sentence out there the federal government has indicated they would seek.”

Duncan is offering to cooperate fully with investigators and admit to the May 2005 murders of Brenda Matthews Groene, her 13-year-old son, Slade, and Matthews Groene’s fiancé, Mark McKenzie, at their home near Wolf Lodge Bay east of Coeur d’Alene.

He also would admit to kidnapping young Dylan and Shasta Groene from the crime scene and to crimes he committed against the children, including murdering Dylan, according to the offer submitted to Douglas. Duncan hasn’t yet been charged with those crimes, but federal prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty in that case.

Douglas would not comment Wednesday on Duncan’s plea offer. An assistant to the prosecutor returned his calls.

“Bill can’t make comments,” Fran Tierney said. Tierney said 1st District Judge Fred Gibler does not want the attorneys commenting so close to the trial.

“We’re still going to trial on the 16th,” she added.

Jean McNeil, public information officer for the U.S. attorney’s office in Boise, said Wednesday afternoon, “I think all we really want to say is certainly it’s the prosecutor’s discretion, and he’s the prosecutor in this case.”

Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams wouldn’t comment on the reason Douglas gave for rejecting Duncan’s offer.

Although Duncan asked Douglas not to seek the death penalty and to agree to a sentence of life in prison, Duncan would also plead guilty in the federal death penalty case, Peven said. There would be no need for a trial and the case could proceed to the sentencing hearing, he said.

The offers would keep Shasta Groene, the sole survivor of the attacks, from having to testify in either the state or federal cases.

“It would eliminate the need for victims to go through any significant trauma in testifying,” Peven said. “Those who seek a death sentence certainly will get that opportunity in the federal system, which is much more streamlined.”

Peven said the appeals process is much shorter at the federal level. He noted that Idaho hasn’t executed a prisoner since 1976, with the exception of one death row inmate who volunteered to be put to death.

Duncan has offered to give law enforcement the ability to crack into his encrypted computer files. That offer was made contingent to the approval of John Sahlin, Shasta’s federal court-appointed guardian.

According to the proposed plea agreement, Sahlin would be informed decryption would allow for investigators to view pictures and videos that “Shasta may believe have been previously destroyed” and that the images could be admitted as evidence in court.

The letter from Duncan’s attorneys doesn’t say why Shasta would be under the impression the images had been destroyed.

In court hearings last October, Douglas and Adams fought over a request by Adams for copies of child pornography Duncan allegedly made of the Groene children.

Adams said the defense was entitled to copies of the videos. Douglas objected, citing a concern that the images could be accidentally disseminated. At the time, Adams said a source in law enforcement told his office the videos may already be on the Internet.

The attorneys eventually agreed that copies would not be made but that Duncan’s attorneys could view the videos privately. In exchange, Douglas agreed not to introduce the videos as evidence in the state case.

An investigator in Minnesota told the Fargo Forum, a North Dakota newspaper, that Duncan’s encryption was “without a doubt the most challenging system” he had seen.

The convicted sex offender, who spent most of his adult life in prison for raping a 14-year-old at gunpoint, had been charged with molestation in Becker County, Minn. He allegedly skipped bail on those charges and fled to Idaho.

Duncan’s offer does not address charges he faces in Washington and California for allegedly murdering three other children.

“We’re not asking anything of them,” Peven said of prosecutors in those states. “They can do what they want. The only offer is for the community of Kootenai County to make some judgment what is best in the overall interest of justice. It gives the families the opportunity to make that judgment as well.”

It’s unclear whether full details of the Oct. 4 plea deal were shared with the victims’ families.

Relatives of Matthews Groene and McKenzie want Duncan to face the death penalty in Idaho.

Darlene Torres, Matthews Groene’s mother, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Lee McKenzie Wood, McKenzie’s mother, said Wednesday that she saw the plea offer and she wants Douglas to continue to seek the death penalty for Duncan.

“What if the feds decide to give him life in prison?” McKenzie Wood said. “We decided we’d rather have two death sentences on him than none at all.”

Federal prosecutors called family members into their Coeur d’Alene office recently to discuss the offer, McKenzie Wood said. But she said Douglas urged family members “not to go their way because we don’t know for sure they’ll get the death sentence.”

She said she is upset by the idea of bargaining with Duncan.

“He’s trying to tell us how he wants it,” McKenzie Wood said. “This man has done too much damage to this world, this country. There’s quite a few kids that have been abused by him and I just can’t tolerate the idea of him getting life in prison, even though I don’t think he’d last in there.

“This man does not deserve to live. He needs to be put away.”

Though Steve Groene has said Shasta is worried and nervous about having to testify, McKenzie Wood said prosecutors told her Shasta is willing to testify.

Two of Kootenai County’s three county commissioners have publicly urged Douglas to settle the case. Not only is the trial expected to cost the county $1 million or more, but Commissioners Rick Currie and Katie Brodie said they are concerned about the emotional toll, especially where Shasta is concerned.

The commissioners did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson, whose department investigated the triple slaying, said he wants Duncan to be tried.

“I don’t think it’s a case that should be pled out,” Watson said last week. “You can’t put a price on justice, and he needs to die.”

Steve Groene’s sister said she understands the stance relatives of Matthews Groene and McKenzie have taken.

“That is their right,” Wendy Price, Shasta’s aunt, said in a recent interview. “Their loss is great and they deserve to see justice.”

Price said she believes Shasta is nervous but ready to testify.

“Nobody wants to see Shasta go to court and certainly nobody in the family wants that,” Price said. “If this trial does go forward, she’ll be there and she’ll do what she has to do to help this come to a conclusion and see some justice.”

Gibler is scheduled to meet with Shasta in a closed session this morning to determine if the girl is competent to take the stand in Duncan’s trial.

It is expected that Shasta’s testimony would place Duncan at the scene of the three slayings near Coeur d’Alene. The victims were bound and bludgeoned with a framing hammer, investigators said.