Buck conviction upheld

State Supreme Court denies appeal in 2002 beating death of Kalispell man

The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of Joseph Buck for murdering George Evans and burglarizing his Airport Road home and business in Kalispell.

Buck appealed his conviction on seven issues. The high court denied each one.

Buck was convicted by a jury Aug. 15, 2003, on charges of deliberate homicide and burglary, and using a weapon during those crimes.

On Oct. 25, 2002, Buck entered Evans' home between 2 and 3 a.m. to steal guns. When Evans awoke, Buck assaulted him so violently, he broke five rifles over Evans' head and back. It also appeared that Buck kicked or stomped Evans hard enough to fracture his ribs. During the assault, Buck bound Evans' hands behind his back, taped his eyes, and left him to die face down on the floor.

District Judge Ted Lympus sentenced Buck to life plus 50 years, designating him a persistent felony offender and ineligible for parole.

Buck asked for a new trial, alleging seven alleged errors in his case.

On Nov. 8, 2002 police interviewed Buck for the second time. He admitted entering Evans' house and beating him, but he said Evans was alive when he left. After Buck confessed, Kalispell police detective Greg Burns asked for a scraping from beneath Buck's fingernails. Buck said he wanted a lawyer.

In his appeal, Buck maintained that his confession should have been inadmissible at trial because he had asked for an attorney. Lympus - and now the Supreme Court - found that Buck's request for a lawyer was related solely to the request for physical evidence from him and that he had signed a form and agreed to waive his Miranda rights.

Buck also said that his use of methamphetamine on the night of the murders should have been kept from the jury. Lympus and the Supreme Court found that it was relevant.

The Supreme Court also ruled that Lympus was not wrong to deny Buck's request for public funds to hire a jury consultant, to not allow hearsay testimony from people whom Buck had told that Evans was alive when left, and to not moving the trial or conducting a public-opinion survey, which Buck had requested based on pretrial publicity.

Buck was granted a motion for money to hire an expert for a psychiatric evaluation, but he appealed the decision that he could not hire a second expert to testify about how his diabetes might have affected his thinking. Another basis of his appeal was that testimony from a forensics expert was limited. The Supreme Court found no basis for overturning Buck's conviction for those two reasons.

"Obviously, I agree with the decision," Lympus said Wednesday. "I'm glad to see that. I would hate to have to put those folks [the witnesses] through another trial."

Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan, who prosecuted Buck, said he is grateful for the decision by the Supreme Court.

"We think it's the right decision," he said.

The decision was written by justice James Nelson and was signed by Chief Justice Karla Gray and John Warner, Brian Morris and Patricia Cotter.

The state Supreme Court also unanimously upheld another murder conviction and a separate murder sentence Wednesday, rejecting in one case the third appeal from a man sentenced to life in prison for killing two men and burning their bodies near Absarokee 16 years ago.

John Miller IV wanted his parole eligibility moved up to reflect credit for time served in jail after the 1990 murders. He also claimed the court improperly relied on a psychological evaluation in sentencing him to two life terms with no chance of parole for 24 years, but justices rejected his arguments.

Miller unsuccessfully appealed his murder conviction in 1996 and 2003.

In another case, justices ruled a Great Falls man received a fair trial on murder charges stemming from a 2003 baseball-bat beating death.

Rodney Dubois was sentenced in 2004 to life in prison without parole in the March 2003 beating death of Dion Guckeen, who was hit in the head three times with the bat while he was sitting on his couch.

Dubois, who testified that he was high on methamphetamine at the time, objected to instructions given to the jury and claimed the district judge should have declared a mistrial after prosecutors called him a gangster and said he lied to police.