‘I’m not sure that bell can be un-rung’

PALMER — Superior Court Judge Gregory Heath granted a motion to change the venue for the trial of Bradley Renfro and Austin Barrett, the last trial of those accused of the murder of Palmer teen David Grunwald in late 2016.

Heath heard testimony from District Attorney Roman Kalytiak who felt that a fair trial was indeed possible, citing the trial of Dominic Johnson that ended in December of 2018. However, jury selection for the Johnson trial was exceedingly long and arduous.

“We’ve already proven we can pick a jury in Palmer because we’ve done it twice,” Kalytiak said. “We’ve proven that there are enough people in this venue to pick a fair jury.”

Chris Provost, representing Renfro from the Office of Public Advocacy, and Craig Howard who represents Barrett, claimed that the trial should be moved because of the difficulty of finding jurors who have not followed the high-profile trials in the media.

“This really comes down to the practicalities, do we take the chance of spending a month or more to pick a jury only to have to change venue and further delays, or do we just trigger that now and know that you will have an opportunity to pick a jury in far less time and proceed to trial if we change the venue to Fairbanks,” Provost said.

No motion was made to sever the trial, and so the two will be tried together. Howard had to go over his schedule for the entire year, detailing the difficulty he would have with going to trial this year. Howard has three trials in Anchorage and Kodiak, along with family obligations and vacation time.

“I am entitled to vacation,” Howard said. “I’m going to the Brooks Range which I’ve already booked, paid money to kind of forget some of this stuff I do for a living.”

Kalytiak argued that not only was a jury selection in Palmer possible, but that the trial should begin this summer.

“Obviously we all live in Alaska because we enjoy the summer, but we just can’t say judge I’m not available the entire summer so let’s do this in 2020,” Kalytiak said. “We haven’t planned any such things because we know that this trial is looming.”

Heath was willing to hear arguments as to why the trial should not be in Palmer after Erick Almandinger and Dominic Johnson were both convicted on all charges by juries in Palmer. Another major issue in dealing with finding an impartial jury is the pending sentencing hearing for Almandinger on March 20, which the court expects to produce a significant amount of media coverage, further disqualifying those in the Mat-Su Valley who have not yet been informed of the prosecution of the four teens following the murder of David Grunwald in November of 2016.

“There’s going to be so much emotion and more information out there it’s getting to the point where it’s so saturated. At this point Mr. Kalytiak, I am concerned I think it would probably take us 6-8 weeks to get a jury,” Heath said.

The aspect of social media as an issue in finding impartial jurors was another hotly contested topic.

“I’m really really really old school, I don’t do social media,” Howard said. “I did follow this case obviously, for various reasons, and all the social media, the twitters and trolling the websites and all that and it was driven home to me that I need to pay more attention to that kind of stuff… I really started realizing how dangerous the social media is vis a vie trying to get a fair trial in this case.”

Howard brought up two high-profile cases. First, Howard discussed the case of the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whose trial was moved to Denver. McVeigh’s co defendant was Terry Nichols.

“It made a difference to Mr. Nichols because he was acquitted, although he got life in prison. He was acquitted of the intentional murder so that made a difference that would not have happened in Oklahoma City. Those people would not have gotten fair trials. I don’t know frankly, judge, how anyone could acquit somebody in this town on this case on even a C felony and still continue to live in this town. I think there would be so much pressure and social ostracization that they’d have to move,” Howard said.

Howard then brought up the recall of Anchorage judge Michael Corey.

“There’s no way he’s going to lose the election. I said you’re crazy, and she explained to me and I learned after the fact the power of social media, how a couple people can get together and by the push a button they can just rage, wage a war against you and you can’t defend against it,” Howard said.

To go with the three cases that Howard must defend and his in-state vacation, he is planning travel to California for family matters and a two-week vacation to the east coast for a wedding. Howard argued that Barrett has an opportunity to be acquitted on the accomplice liability agreement, and mentioned that there are protections in the state constitution pertaining to a fair trial.

“Fairbanks is a lot different. It really is. They don’t care about people in southcentral… We’re Los Anchorage to them. This notion that everyone’s heard about this case I don’t think is true,” Howard said. “I would encourage the court to seriously consider because I think we really run the deal of not being able to get a jury here.”

Not only are timing constraints and jurors an issue, but the pool of witnesses live in the Valley, and transporting them to Fairbanks could prove difficult.

“It’s going to be a lot of inconvenience and cost and the court knows that we have some witnesses that simply don’t want to be involved in the process and we have to use ‘legal coercion’ so to speak to get them to be involved in the process and that adds another dimension of difficulty to us doing this in Fairbanks,” Kalytiak said.

Provost mentioned that he plans to file a motion to have a voice recognition expert examine the damning video taken hours after the murder.

“She took the video and she said she could not identify who the speaker was,” Provost said.

Judge Heath ruled in favor of the change of venue. Provost and Howard will have until May 17 to file motions prior to a status hearing in early June. The trial date has been tentatively set for August 19.

“As much stuff that came in at the last trial I believe, I stand by my rulings in that last case, that we had a fair and impartial jury in that last case, I do believe that,” Heath said. “But, there was stuff that came out in that last trial that may not apply to these two defendants and I’m not sure if that bell can be unrung.”