Lawyers fight murder verdicts

Attorneys for a young Evergreen woman convicted of two counts of deliberate homicide asked a judge Tuesday to either declare her innocent, order a new trial or pronounce her guilty of a lesser charge.

Justine Winter, 18, has been in the Flathead County Detention Center since Feb. 3 when a jury found her guilty of murder for the deaths of a Columbia Falls woman and her teenage son.

Erin Thompson, 35, and her 13-year-old son Caden Vincent Odell were killed March 19, 2009, when Winter’s vehicle, traveling at 85 miles per hour, crossed the centerline of U.S. 93 north of Kalispell and collided with Thompson’s vehicle.

Prosecutors and law enforcement officials said Winter intentionally collided with Thompson’s vehicle after she sent a series of text messages to her boyfriend in which she threatened to kill herself and crash her car.

The details unfolded during a two-week trial. Winter is scheduled to be sentenced June 6.

But Winter’s attorneys David Stufft and Maxwell Battle argued Tuesday that the convictions were flawed and that Judge Katherine Curtis should intercede in the interest of justice.

Among the attorneys’ claims were that they were not allowed to question prosecution witnesses on key issues, that a prosecution expert witness falsely identified himself as an engineer and that jurors were not properly informed of the maximum penalties for a conviction of deliberate homicide.

Stufft originally asked for a new trial in a motion filed March 4 in Flathead District Court. He cited 17 reasons, among them that a new witness had come forward and that the Flathead County Attorney’s Office had changed its main theory in the case.

Stufft called that new witness, Dan DeCoite, to testify Tuesday. DeCoite said he was among the first on the scene, though his testimony didn’t appear to be at odds with testimony submitted during the trial.

Deputy County Attorney Lori Adams said DeCoite’s testimony did nothing to discount the account of Richard Poeppel, who testified at trial that he saw Winter’s vehicle cross the centerline and cause the crash.

Adams said DeCoite’s testimony “would not have been so much that the decision from the jury would have been different.”

Stufft submitted a deposition showing that a man retained as a crash reconstructionist for the prosecution was served a cease-and-desist order by the Montana Board of Professional Engineers and Professional Land Surveyors ordering him not to identify himself as an engineer in Montana.

Adams said he never identified himself as an engineer during the trial.

As for Stufft’s assertion that the County Attorney’s Office had changed its theory from the time it filed the case to the time of the trial, Adams said the prosecution had maintained throughout the case that the text messages were a suicide note or a valid threat.

Stufft has asserted that the state initially claimed the crash was a suicide attempt but changed its theory when forensic linguists testified that the text messages were not suicidal.

“The state’s position was always that the messages spoke for themselves,” Adams said.

Stufft also said that while he was denied an opportunity to question two Montana Highway Patrol troopers about their disciplinary files, County Attorney Ed Corrigan was permitted to question defense crash reconstructionist Scott Curry about his firing from the U.S. Forest Service.

“We believe we should have been able to inquire whether or not [the troopers] had been disciplined in any fashion by the state,” Stufft said.

Stufft and Adams also debated Corrigan’s closing remarks at the trial. Stufft said Corrigan’s admission that Winter did not purposefully kill Thompson and Odell discredited his own theory.

Adams said Stufft was selectively misconstruing the meaning of Corrigan’s testimony and that prosecutors argued she “knowingly” committed the act, not that she “purposefully” killed Thompson and Odell.

“When you take his argument as a whole, you will see the state did not make any judicial admissions,” she said.

Curtis allowed Winter to hug her father before she was led back to the county jail. Winter cried along with her family as Curtis left the courtroom and permitted them to embrace.

“Thank you, thank you,” Mary Winter, Justine’s mother, said to Curtis.

Curtis has the option of denying the request for a new trial (and upholding the murder verdicts), declaring Winter innocent or finding her guilty of a lesser charge such as mitigated deliberate homicide.

Each conviction of felony deliberate homicide carries a minimum penalty of 10 years and a maximum of 100 years or life in Montana State Prison.

“You will hear from me next week,” Curtis said at the conclusion of Tuesday’s hearing. “I expect you all to continue preparations for sentencing.”

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