Testimony continues today to determine whether Nathan Ybanez should get a new trial or have his sentence reduced for killing his mother in 1998.
Ybanez was 16 when he beat his mother, Julie, with a fireplace poker and strangled her.
He was convicted of first-degree murder in 1999 and sentenced to life without a chance of parole.
Erik Jensen was given life in prison for helping Ybanez.
Ybanez’s attorneys filed a motion for a new trial and told Douglas County Judge Nancy Hopf that evidence showing he was abused was not fully investigated by his trial attorney or presented to jurors.
The defense motion also says that Ybanez’s father, Roger, hired lawyer Craig Truman to represent his son and that posed a conflict-of-interest because Roger Ybanez did not want his abuse of his son to be revealed.
Nathan Ybanez “needed an adult to act as his guardian,” said Ybanez attorney Michael Gallagher. “The next thing he needed was a lawyer. He did not get either.”
Roger Ybanez has denied he abused his son.
The new defense team also has criticized Truman for not filing an appeal at the request of Nathan Ybanez.
Prosecutors indicated Nathan Ybanez told Truman there was no abuse and that psychological testing showed he was a “psychopathic deviant.”
Kathleen Lord, chief appellate deputy in the Colorado public defender’s office, testified on behalf of Ybanez and said that not filing an appeal “fell way below the minimum standard.”
“I was really shocked to find Mr. Truman did not file a direct appeal in this case,” she said.
Truman testified the court did not tell Ybanez of his right to an appeal.
Truman consulted with lawyers around the country who advised that case law at the time showed that without an advisal from the court, an appeal could be launched at another time; he decided not to appeal because of a mistake the court made.
Truman spent a few hours on the stand Monday, but the line of questioning did not get into why he decided not to present information in police reports and social service records showing Ybanez had complained that he was physically abused.
Gallagher asked Truman whether he knew Ybanez complained he had been beaten with wooden and metal spoons and a spatula when he was a child.
Truman said he did not know details regarding Ybanez’s purported fear of his father.
“If I knew he had been habitually sleeping with a baseball bat, that is something I would have looked into,” Truman said.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
