Palmer jury convicts Spencer Johnson of 2012 murder

PALMER — A jury found Spencer Johnson guilty of second-degree murder, according to an attorney familiar with the case.

Though accused of killing just one person, by virtue of the quirks of Alaska criminal law, Johnson, 21, was charged with multiple murder counts including first-degree murder, second-degree murder intending serious injury, second-degree murder by extreme indifference and second-degree felony murder, as well as manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and two counts of first-degree burglary.

The state accused Johnson of cutting the throat of Michael Plummer during an March 7, 2012 altercation over a truck and the whereabouts of Spencer Johnson’s stepmother Holly Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, husband of Holly and father to Spencer, is presently serving a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty in connection with the incident, though he is seeking to withdraw that plea after claiming coercion on the part of his defense attorney.

The prosecution has argued that Spencer Johnson killed Plummer in an amped-up state. During closing arguments delivered Wednesday, prosecuting attorney Brittany Dunlop argued that the physical evidence at the scene belied Spencer Johnson’s intentions.

Prosecutors sought a first-degree murder conviction based on the physical evidence, including the wounds present on Michael Plummer, Dunlop said.

“We’re talking about a stab wound that goes left to right, top to bottom, and downward, and ends up two and a half inches lower than the bottom of the wound, into the lung,” she said. “The degree of force, the degree of malice, the degree of intent necessary to do that to another person constitutes murder in the first degree.”

While Spencer Johnson’s motive might help explain his actions, Spencer’s motive doesn’t tell the whole story, Dunlop said.

“As you all sit there, you may wonder what the motive is, what causes another human being to be able to commit such an intimate and violent act upon another. Motive isn’t one of the elements that the state has to prove, and the judge will instruct you that motive may be helpful, but it’s not enough.”

During a three-hour interview with police, played for jurors Feb. 6, Johnson repeatedly maintained he moved to push Plummer with his knife in his hand after a gunshot was fired and his father was pushed. However, this directly conflicted with multiple witness accounts of the timeline of events offered by at least two occupants of the house.

That discrepancy was evidence of calculation, Dunlop said.

“Here you have an individual that is hot-headed, hot-blooded, impetuous, and angry, and you see all of that in his three-hour interview with police,” she said. “You see every bit of his anger, emotion and demeanor as he lies to the police for three hours, insisting that he heard a gun go off first when all of the evidence is to the contrary.”

The other charges, including the burglary charges, were sought and obtained by the state because they constitute charges subordinate to the state’s primary focus on first-degree murder, Dunlop said.

Troopers attempting to contact Johnson at his Anchorage workplace the next day were told he’d left, showing Spencer attempted to elude authorities, Dunlop said.

The defense argued that Spencer Johnson’s recollection of the events the night of the stabbing may have been jumbled by sleeplessness and some drug use during the ensuing day, according to Office of Public Advocacy attorney Paul Maslakowski.

“‘Call me Ishmael,’” he said, in his opening statement, quoting the opening line to “Moby Dick.”

“Why am I talking about ‘Moby Dick?’” Maslakowski continued. “Because a criminal case is much like a book. Just like a book has an author, the author of this book is the state, because they bear the burden of producing the evidence and (they) tell the story to support the accusations they make.”

Witnesses called by the prosecution — including members of the Smith family — didn’t actually see the shooting, Maslakowski said. Additional evidence, including a message sent from Andrew Johnson’s phone to Holly Johnson threatening to “stab your homegirl in the throat” submitted to the family wasn’t strong enough to show premeditation, Maslakowski said. Nor did actions after the altercation, when Spencer Johnson testified he was severely scolded for stabbing Plummer, indicate murderous intentions, Maslakowski said.

“Nobody expected that to happen, and if you didn’t expect it to happen, you couldn’t have intended it to happen,” he said.

The interview between police officers was conducted at the Anchorage courthouse, and Spencer Johnson admitted he erroneously recalled events at the scene, Maslakowski said.

“You look at the emotions in there, they are 100 percent appropriate to what you would expect from a young man based on what he went through in that situation,” he said.

The defense also argued that Spencer Johnson’s move with the knife was made in response to Michael Plummer making a reaching motion, as if to produce a weapon, though witnesses claim Plummer was unarmed at the time of his death.

Jessica Smith, Plummer’s fiancée, maintains the family who owned the house were simply innocent bystanders who became unwitting victims in a domestic dispute after providing shelter to Holly Johnson. Smith was arrested and compelled to testify in the trial, and told jurors she had sought to avoid testifying because she knew she would have to “say bad things” about Plummer, including admitting drug use the day before the incident, Maslakowski said.

Online court documents did not contain a sentencing date as of Saturday.

Smith told the Frontiersman she didn’t feel she had anything to add to the accounts of Plummer’s death, since she didn’t actually witness the murder, though she admitted to firing the gunshot that sent Andrew Johnson to the hospital.

Smith, who has since lost custody of her children and been arrested on fourth-degree drugs misconduct charges, said she agreed to take Holly Johnson in that night because they knew each other from prison.

Plummer’s toxicology report revealed numerous drugs in his system the day of his murder, according to statements made during trial.

Plummer was also the identified victim in a beating-for-hire case that touched off a flurry of meth-fueled break-ins and fights and eventually culminated in the Valentine’s Day 2005 murder of Jeremiah Butler.

Since being charged with Plummer’s death, Spencer Johnson has also been charged with second-degree robbery, fourth-degree assault and fourth-degree theft in connection with an alleged attack on another inmate in December 2013.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com or on Twitter @reporterbriano.