Lee Owen Stenseth, 56, was arrested in 2006 after Alaska State Troopers say they watched him fill a prescription for the powerful painkiller Roxicodone made out to Leonard Owen Underwood. They searched Stenseth’s home, court documents show, and turned up notary stamps, forged birth and death certificates and a driver’s license with Stenseth’s picture and Underwood’s name. The license turned up valid in DMV databases.
The decision, penned by judge Robert Coats, spends very little time dealing with the facts of the case. The bulk is spent rehashing Superior Court Judge Eric Smith’s decisions.
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Two weeks later, Coats wrote, Stenseth filed to have the court appoint him an attorney.
“Stenseth also filed a motion to withdraw his plea, asserting that [his attorney Lance] Wells had been unprepared for trial and thus pressured him into entering a plea and that Wells had a conflict of interest. On August 3, Wells filed a motion to withdraw as counsel, asserting that ‘the relationship between attorney and client [had] gone spiraling downhill,’” Coats wrote.
Wells denied Stenseth’s claims. Smith allowed Wells to withdraw and also found Stenseth had too much money — between his $2,088 per month pension and the $15,000 in equity in his home — to qualify for a state-appointed attorney.
At a hearing on Stenseth’s motion to withdraw his plea, Stenseth represented himself.
“At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Smith denied Stenseth’s motion to withdraw his plea, finding that Wells had provided adequate representation. He concluded that Stenseth had merely changed his mind about the decision that he had made,” Coats wrote.
Stenseth then hired an attorney to represent him at his sentencing hearing.
Coats said that Smith didn’t ask Stenseth if he’d tried to find an attorney before that hearing, nor did he let Stenseth know the benefits of having an attorney represent him at such a hearing.
Coats also pointed out that hiring an attorney for such a proceeding as withdrawing a plea would likely cost about $20,000, and that Stenseth’s financial disclosures showed he didn’t have that much money available.
“The record, therefore, does not establish that Stenseth had the financial ability to hire an attorney. It also does not establish that he intelligently, knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to counsel,” Coats wrote.
The appeals court reversed Smith’s decisions and sent the case back to him for further hearings.
Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.
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