CHEYENNE, Wyo.—Lawyers representing Wyoming’s lone death row inmate are seeking subpoenas to help them investigate their claims that both the original prosecutor and defense lawyer mishandled his first trial.
Dale Wayne Eaton, 56, was sentenced to death in the 1988 rape and murder of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell, of Billings, Mont., who disappeared while driving from Colorado to Cody.
His lawyers, Terry Harris of Cheyenne and Sean O’Brien of Missouri, asked U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson this week to grant them court orders to secure papers allowing them to investigate alleged problems with Eaton’s state prosecution and defense.
Harris and O’Brien say Eaton’s original lawyer, Wyatt Skaggs of Laramie, presented no evidence to the jury of Eaton’s emotional or cognitive disabilities to support his argument that Kimmell’s murder wasn’t premeditated.
They also say that after Eaton’s conviction, Skagg’s presentation during the penalty phase of the trial “was shallow and riddled with factual mistakes, revealing his failure to conduct a ‘thorough’ investigation of the client’s life history.”
Skaggs said Thursday he hadn’t seen the lawyers’ court filing and had no comment.
Harris and O’Brien also allege that Casper District Attorney Michael Blonigen, who prosecuted Eaton, misled the court about his relationship with another inmate.
That inmate testified at Eaton’s trial that he was in the Natrona County jail with Eaton and that Eaton discussed Kimmell’s slaying with him.
Eaton’s lawyers say Blonigen claimed the inmate made no deals with prosecutors in exchange for his testimony, although they allege the inmate later got a break at sentencing on a federal gun charge in part because of his assistance in Eaton’s case.
Blonigen said Thursday that Eaton’s lawyers were “implying something that just never happened.”
“I know it’s a capital case, so I know you’re going to take some shots, but I was disappointed in some of the allegations in the paperwork,” Blonigen said.
He also defended Skaggs, saying that the lawyers’ accusations were “misleading.”
“Wyatt Skaggs, in my experience with him, always worked very hard dealing with cases that nobody else would take. And that were very, very difficult cases. And I still have a high opinion of Wyatt’s professional abilities,” he said.
The Wyoming Supreme Court has upheld Eaton’s death sentence. Johnson ordered a halt to Eaton’s execution, which was scheduled for February, to give allow time to consider Eaton’s federal appeal.
Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg, who is representing the state in seeking to uphold Eaton’s death, said Thursday he had no comment on Harris and O’Brien’s claims.
