Evidence about sexual abuse and brain damage could have persuaded a jury to spare a man the death penalty for his conviction of killing an attorney in a Salt Lake City courthouse nearly a quarter century ago, the man’s attorney said Monday.
Attorney Andrew Parnes told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that a doctor spoke with Ronnie Lee Gardner for only about an hour shortly before Gardner was sentenced to death in 1985.
Parnes said in oral and written arguments that jurors didn’t hear about Gardner’s “exceptionally deprived and abusive background,” which included sexual abuse and an illness that may have damaged his brain.
Utah Assistant Attorney General Thomas Brunker argued the mental-health evidence was a “double-edge sword” that would not persuade a jury to spare Gardner’s life.
The panel did not say when it would rule.
Gardner, 48, was convicted of shooting and killing attorney Mike Burdell in 1985 when Gardner was in court facing charges in another fatal shooting. Burdell was in another room and was not involved in Gardner’s case.
Authorities say Gardner’s girlfriend smuggled a loaded gun into the courthouse, and he opened fire with it in a failed escape attempt.
Gardner and a bailiff were wounded in the melee, and Burdell was shot twice before Gardner was captured on the courthouse lawn.
Gardner’s attorneys have raised several issues on appeal, mainly that Gardner may not have meant to kill Burdell.
Parnes said the .22 caliber gun used in the slaying had a defective safety mechanism that made the gun prone to accidental firings. And before shooting Burdell in the head, Parnes said Gardner was “bloody, dazed and confused” after having been shot in the chest by a law enforcement officer’s .38 caliber handgun.
Parnes said that taken together with Gardner’s mental state and defective gun, Burdell’s shooting was more likely a result of a man bursting out of an another room during the fray “than a conscious, deliberate decision to kill.”
Judge Michael McConnell, a member of the appeals court panel, said during Monday’s hearing that Parnes’ explanation differed from what he’d learned about the shooting. “He (Gardner) did stop, and he did seem quite calculated and under control,” McConnell said.
A lower court in April 2007 ruled that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Gardner intended to shoot Burdell in his escape.
