Voorhis guilty of 11 counts

PALMER — Jurors reached a verdict Wednesday in the case of Donald Voorhis, but their work isn’t quite done.

Jurors found Voorhis guilty of all but two counts. Voorhis was not guilty on two ounts of attempted murder — those relating to a shot he allegedly fired at a neighbor and shots fired at Alaska State Trooper Ben Mank. The jury of one man and 11 women found Voorhis guilty of attempting to murder trooper Sgt. Nathan Bucknall, seven counts of assault and one each of violating his release conditions for a misdemeanor, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.

Voorhis was arrested in Sept. 2006 after a three-day standoff at his Talkeetna-rea trailer. Troopers had initially gone there to arrest him on outstanding warrants and speak to him about an incident in which he was alleged to have fired his rifle at a neighbor. By the end of the standoff, troopers had deployed scads of pepper spray bombs and other irritants, tried to peel the roof off the trailer, and, eventually, tore down two walls of the trailer with a bulldozer.

But the jury was sent back this morning to decide a few more questions. Were the assault counts relating to troopers and Voorhis’ neighbor the most serious type of assaults and were certain assaults committed on troopers trying to do their duty?

An answer of “yes” to either question will put what’s called in legal terms an aggravating factor on Voorhis’ conviction. Superior Court Judge Eric Smith will have consider those factors when deciding how much time Voorhis will spend in prison.

Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak argued that when talking about assault with a dangerous instrument, that instrument need not be a gun, knife or other item traditionally thought of as a weapon. It could be a beer bottle, a 2 x 4, or even an attack dog.

Not only was a gun, traditionally a very effective weapon, used in the assault, Kalytiak said, but in each case it was actually fired.

That, he said, puts these assault counts at the top of the spectrum in terms of seriousness.

As to whether Voorhis was shooting at troopers — Kalytiak argued that troopers surrounded Voorhis’ trailer for more than a day before the shots were fired. The first trooper on scene, Kalytiak argued, knocked on Voorhis’ door and announced himself as a trooper. Voorhis knew, Kalytiak said, that he was threatening tropers.

Herman Walker, one of two lawyers representing Voorhis, argued that, as far as the evidence in the two-week trial is concerned, it’s not even clear whether Voorhis shot at his neighbor.

As to the assault against trooper Mank, the trooper wasn’t even in the trailer when the shots were fired, Walker argued. How was Voorhis to know Mank was even there or that he was a state trooper?

As to whether Voorhis knew the people he fired at were troopers there to arrest him, Walker argued that Voorhis was not in his right mind and there was no evidence Voorhis knew they were troopers.

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