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Show Is the public defender a wasteful spender? by Christopher Smart Is Summit County's public defender spending too much of the public's money? That question will be answered next Tuesday when the Summit County Commission decides whether to appoint public defender Kenneth R. Brown to another one-year one-year term. Expected to ask the question is Assistant County Attorney Terry Christiansen, who has opposed Brown in the courtroom on numerous occasions over the past five years. Each year the commission selects a public defender from proposals submitted to the county. However, for the first time in several years the position has been advertised, both in ( the Utah Bar Association's monthly publication and the legal notices section of the Park Record. Brown has been Summit County's public defender since 1979. However, it wasn't until the trial of murder suspect Wesley Allen Tuttle last spring that a schism developed between Brown, the county attorney's office, and the Summit County Sheriff's Department. The dispute grew during the trial of Edward Charles Newbury, who was recently sentenced to the Utah State Prison for the murder of his grandmother, Alma Jones, 66, Kamas. Following the trial Christiansen and Summit County Detective Rob Berry told the Park Record in interviews that Brown's numerous motions in the Newbury case had wasted taxpayers' money. Christiansen and Berry said the case should have been "open and shut" because Newbury had confessed to the killing shortly after Jones' body was found in March. Brown, however, contended that Newbury's statement to police was not a confession. Among other things Brown asked the court to have Newbury evaluated by psychiatrists, asked that his statement to police not be allowed as evidence and moved for a change of venue. Christiansen and Berry believe that Brown convinced Newbury to change his plea to not guilty. Further, they maintain that Brown asked Newbury to change his story to include a second person as the killer. The case did not go to trial because Newbury eventually changed his plea back to guilty. But Brown said that he did not go overboard in the defense of Newbury or Tuttle. "A person in our society without money is entitled to as vigorous defense a someone with money. It's the law." Brown said the Tuttle case was hard fought on both sides. During the trial, Brown said, he criticized the sheriff's department for its investigation of the murder. He added that since the trial his relationship has been strained with the county attorney's office. The charges that the public defender is wasting the time of the county attorney and wasting tax Defender to A8 (CoDimitninninedl ffpqpinm Defender from A1 dollars is an outgrowth of feelings left over from the trial, Brown said. County Commissioners Ron Perry and Cliff Blonquist said noticed that the bills from the Tuttle trial have been high. Perry said he didn't know what the final bill would be for the Tuttle trial. "But we spent a lot of money on Tuttle." Brown used tactics during the Tuttle case that were not likely to work, Perry said. Additionally, Perry maintains that the numerous motions put before the Third District Court Judge Philip R. Fishier during the Tuttle trial made more work for the county attorney. "How do you equate in tax dollars what the county attorney does? How much is it costing the county if he spends 90 percent of his time on one case?" Perry asked. ' Perry conceded that "it is the nature of the business" that the public defender and the county attorney are opponents. Blonquist agreed that some of the expenditures in the Tuttle case were "out of line." He explained that some of the expert witnesses called by the defense may not have been necessary. Asked if the expenditures work against the reappointment of Brown, Blonquist said he would seek "the recommendation of the county attorney." In response to high bills from the Tuttle case, Summit County has drafted a new contract for the public defender job. According to Christiansen, public defenders will not be allowed to call expert witnesses unless they have court approval. Christiansen pointed to an expert witness in the Tuttle trial as an example of "excessive expense." Brown brought in a memory expert from the state of Washington to tell the jury how human memory works in connection with witness accounts of events of Sept. 25, 1983, when Sydney Ann Merrick of Salt Lake City was stabbed to death on the Summit Park Interstate 80 offramp. "Her testimony was interesting but it didn't add much to the trial," Christiansen said. Brown maintains the county commission should go outside the county attorney's office when seeking legal advice on the public defender selection. "Those are the people I go against every week. They want their job to be easier and I don't make it easier. . |