Sentencing moved in murder case

Flathead District Judge Katherine Curtis has rescheduled a hearing triggered by a young Evergreen woman’s request for a new trial on two counts of deliberate homicide.

However, Curtis wrote in an order filed Wednesday that additional delays would not be tolerated in Justine Winter’s case.

Curtis also expressed her view that attorneys for Winter, 18, were actively trying to delay proceedings, basing her opinion on the timing of their requests since the Feb. 3 guilty verdict.

The judge’s order set the hearing for a new trial for May 16 and rescheduled Winter’s sentencing to May 25.

Winter has been in the Flathead County Detention Center since a jury convicted her of killing 35-year-old Erin Thompson and her 13-year-old son Caden Odell.

The pregnant mother and her son died in a crash on March 19, 2009, on U.S. 93 when Winter’s vehicle crossed the center line, minutes after Winter threatened to commit suicide and crash her car during a text-message conversation with her boyfriend.

The change in the court schedule comes after Winter’s attorney David Stufft requested transcripts from the two-week trial, noting he would need additional time to analyze them for use in his request for a new trial.

Curtis granted the request, asking that the documents be provided to Winter’s attorney by April 18, but not without declaring that no further continuances or delays would be allowed and that scheduling conflicts must be supported by affidavits and submitted by April 8.

Stufft asked for a new trial for Winter on the basis of more than a dozen claims, among them that a new witness to the fatal crash has come forward, that a juror had improper contact with the victims’ family and that Curtis was unfair toward the defense.

In her Wednesday order, Curtis noted the timing of Stufft’s filings since the Feb. 3 guilty verdict.

She wrote that Winter’s March 4 motion for a new trial — requested 30 days after the trial ended — did not include a request for transcripts and that Winter’s attorneys didn’t request any portion of the court record even after the County Attorney’s Office asked for transcripts of certain witness testimony on March 8.

“Not until Tuesday, March 29, 2011, three days before her reply brief is due and eight days before the long-scheduled hearing, did the defendant make any request whatsoever for any portion of the trial transcript, all of which could have been requested at any time on or after Feb. 4,” Curtis wrote.

She also wrote that while Winter’s motion for a new trial — filed March 4 — included an allegation that a juror had improper contact with a member of the victims’ family at the courthouse, surveillance footage wasn’t requested until 11 days later.

Curtis noted that several of Stufft’s claims do not require transcripts or could be satisfied by the March 21 release of partial transcripts. She also wrote in the order that she would not allow Stufft to submit any additional reasons for a request for a new trial.

“The court can only conclude that the 11th-hour motion for trial transcripts and to vacate the briefing schedule and hearing date are interposed primarily for purposes of delay,” Curtis wrote.

The sentencing hearing originally was scheduled for March 30, but was delayed until April 12 when prosecutors asked for additional time so Thompson’s husband could attend the hearing.

Winter, who was tried as an adult, faces between 10 and 100 years in prison for each of the deliberate homicide convictions.

Reporter Eric Schwartz may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at eschwartz@dailyinterlake.com.