| displacedinMN |
03-09-2016 08:19 PM |
sorry for the bump.
This may be the end of it and him
The Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a Little Falls man serving life in prison for killing two teenage intruders at his home on Thanksgiving Day 2012.
In a 56-page ruling Wednesday, the high court ruled that Byron Smith, a 67-year-old retired State Department employee, received a fair trial in Morrison County in 2014.
Smith’s defense attorney said Wednesday that Smith is poised to appeal to the federal court system.
“We’re not done. We are far from it,” attorney Steve Meshbesher said. “Whether it’s us or another lawyer, I don’t know. But I’m going to strongly suggest he keep on fighting the fight because he got a very unfair deal.”
Prosecutor Peter Orput said he hopes the ruling “brings solace to the families. I also hope it brings solace to the community … I know there’s a group of people who don’t want to accept that reality and they choose to ignore quite a bit of the evidence. The Supreme Court didn’t ignore anything they were assiduous in reviewing the evidence. I applaud them for their review of the case.”
At trial, the jury deliberated for about three hours before convicting Smith of four counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Haile Kifer, 18, and Nick Brady, 17. Smith shot the two unarmed cousins as they descended his basement stairs about 10 minutes apart, then wrapped their bodies in tarps and dragged them into a backroom, keeping them there and calling a neighbor the next day to ask for help in finding attorney.
Smith’s case drew national attention amid debate over so-called castle doctrine laws, raising questions about how far a homeowner can go to defend himself and his property.
In Minnesota, a person can take a life to avert death or great bodily harm or to prevent a felony in his or her home. Juries are instructed to consider the circumstances and whether it was a decision a reasonable person would make in light of the perceived danger.
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Smith as a vigilante who sat waiting for burglars in his home, then coldly executed the teens, continuing to shoot them after they no longer posed a threat. A surveillance-style audio recording that Smith had set up chilled the courtroom with sounds of gunshots booming, of the two teenagers groaning and screaming and then of Smith muttering how he saw them as “vermin.”
Smith had claimed he was terrified to his core after prior break-ins in which guns were stolen, and was defending himself and his property. His attorneys claimed on appeal that the trial contained a host of errors, including the judge prohibiting them from giving a complete defense, improperly closing the courtroom and failing to properly instruct the jury on a disputed claim made in closing arguments. They had asked the high court to vacate Smith’s conviction and either dismiss his first-degree murder indictment or send his case back to district court for a new trial.
The Supreme Court found in its ruling, however, that either errors weren’t made or they were so insignificant that they did not deprive Smith of a fair judicial proceeding.
The court did find, however, that after the trial Smith’s challenge on restitution requests from the victims’ families was not timely and ordered the district court to award the families nearly $19,500 to pay for cemetery headstones.
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Minnesota man who killed teens in break-in charged with murder
(https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=267133)