Judge OKs request for Winter to testify
Flathead County District Court Judge Katherine Curtis ruled on outstanding matters Thursday relative to the impending homicide trial of 17-year-old Justine Winter.
In a seven-page order, Curtis ruled that Winter will be allowed to testify to injuries allegedly sustained from the use of a seatbelt as well as brain trauma suffered in the March 19, 2009, collision that killed a Columbia Falls woman and her son.
The judge also left open the possibility of allowing testimony from a linguistic expert called by Winter’s defense to interpret the meaning and context of text messages which prosecutors claim are suicidal in nature.
Winter, who is being tried as an adult, was charged with two counts of deliberate homicide after the crash that killed 35-year-old Erin Thompson and her 13-year-old son Caden Vincent Odell. Thompson was pregnant at the time.
Prosecutors allege Winter intentionally crossed the centerline in a U.S. 93 North construction zone in an attempt to kill herself. Text messages sent by Winter to her boyfriend just before the crash allegedly referred to suicide and crashing her car, according to court documents.
Curtis ruled that the defense’s proposed linguistic expert, Robert Leonard, who testified at an earlier hearing that Winter’s text messages were not indicative of a suicidal mindset, will be allowed to provide limited testimony at trial. That decision is contingent on Leonard proving he fits the legal definition of an expert witness at a hearing a day before he testifies, according to the order.
Winter’s attorneys have also requested to move the trial out of Flathead County and Northwest Montana. Attorney David Stufft claims reader comments, a letter to the editor and to a lesser extent, coverage of the case by the Daily Inter Lake shows an unbiased jury could not be found in Flathead County.
Several people who posted comments below stories related to the case on the Inter Lake’s website were subpoenaed to testify at a Sept. 15 hearing. Inter Lake Publisher Rick Weaver and Managing Editor Frank Miele testified at a continuation of that hearing Oct. 19.
Curtis is expected to rule on whether to move the trial after Stufft and the Flathead County Attorney’s Office submit proposed findings Monday.
The trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 8.