Cop killer’s conviction upheld

ANCHORAGE — A man convicted of murder for killing a Palmer police officer in 1999 will not have his conviction overturned, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Kim Cook was convicted of murder in October 2000 in the death of officer James Rowland. The officer had been called to check on Cook, who’d been reported slumped over the wheel of a pickup on the ramp leading from the Palmer-Wasilla Highway to the parking lot of the old Carrs store.

Essentially, Cook argued — and managed to convince Superior Court Judge Eric Smith that he was right — that since a court froze his assets and he had to go to trial with a public defender rather than a private attorney, he should get a new trial.

Appeals Court Judge David Mannheimer wrote for the majority of the appeals court that Smith’s ruling was not correct.

The story of how the case got here is complicated. At the time he went to trial, Cook was also facing a wrongful death civil lawsuit brought by Rowland’s estate.

Cook didn’t respond to the lawsuit and a judge ruled against him, awarding just more than $7 million to the Rowlands and freezing $300,000 worth of his assets.

At the same time, Cook was trying to hire a private attorney to represent him. The attorney wanted a $200,000 retainer and Cook only had $92,000 after the assets were frozen.

Cook tried to get those assets unfrozen, but the judge that ruled against him denied his attempts.

“In other words, the court declined to set aside the judgment and Cook did not regain control of his assets. Consequently, the superior court appointed the Public Defender Agency to represent Cook,” Mannheimer wrote.

But then the Alaska Supreme Court reversed that civil court decision, saying the judge there should have allowed Cook to plead his case even if he’d failed to respond in the first place. He had a good reason not to respond.

The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court, with Rowland's estate agreeing to take the $300,000 it got in the first place.

“Cook concedes that if he were tried anew, he probably would be unable to hire private counsel and he would end up being represented by the Public Defender Agency again. Cook argues, however, that this is beside the point,” Mannheimer wrote.

The point, Cook argued, was that since the decision not to let him have his money back was clearly erroneous since the state’s highest court overturned it, then he was erroneously denied his right to hire the attorney of his choice.

But, Mannheimer wrote, the judges in Cook’s concurrent cases weren’t trying to deny him his right.

Holding judges to the standards Cook deployed would require the civil judge to be aware of what the criminal judge was doing, and vice versa. They would also have to be able to predict whether their colleagues’ rulings would be upheld on appeal. They would also have to consider what ruling to make in light of how it might affect a case they’re not even trying.

“We conclude that it is illogical and unfair to overturn a criminal conviction under such circumstances, and we do not believe that the Sixth Amendment calls for such a result,” Mannheimer wrote.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.