OMAHA, Neb.—The Nebraska Supreme Court ordered a new trial Friday for a Wyoming man sentenced to life in prison for the 2003 shooting death of a Colorado man in Nebraska, and it set a precedent requiring state courts to give defendants more time to prepare for trial in certain instances.
Vencil Ash III, 42, of Cheyenne, Wyo., was convicted last year of first-degree murder in Kimball County District Court. Ash was charged with killing Ryan Guitron, of Fort Collins, Colo., in 2003. Guitron’s remains were found in 2010 at an abandoned farm near Bushnell in western Nebraska.
Authorities believe Ash took Guitron, a onetime roommate of Ash’s, to an abandoned farm, shot him and buried him in a woodpile. Ash’s wife, 25-year-old Kelly Meehan-Ash, was initially charged with aiding and abetting first-degree murder and was set to stand trial with her husband. Police say the three had been smoking methamphetamine before Guitron was shot.
But days before the couple’s trial was to begin, Meehan-Ash cut a deal with prosecutors in which she agreed to testify against her husband for a reduced charge of being an accessory to the crime.
Upon learning of the deal, Ash’s attorney asked the judge to postpone the trial to allow him to prepare a defense for Meehan-Ash’s testimony. The trial judge denied the motion, saying it would be too difficult for the court to inform those already summoned for jury duty.
When trial began three days later, Ash’s attorney again requested more time, arguing that his preparation, trial strategy and theory had to be adjusted for a surprise witness, and that he did not have enough time to sift through hundreds of pages of correspondence between Ash and Meehan-Ash, hours of recorded conversations and several police interviews of Meehan-Ash. The trial judge again denied the motion, instead ordering that Meehan-Ash be made available to the defense for a deposition the night before opening arguments.
On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court said the lower court was wrong to deny Ash’s request to postpone the trial, saying that Ash was not given fair notice of prosecutors’ deal with his wife.
“We therefore hold that when the state reaches a plea agreement with a co-defendant to testify on the brink of trial and that testimony is central to the state’s prosecution of a criminal defendant, a trial court must, upon request, provide defense counsel with an adequate opportunity to investigate facts relevant to defending against the testimony,” the high court wrote.
Kimball County Attorney David Wilson said Friday he had not had a chance to review the high court’s opinion and could not comment on it. But a spokeswoman for the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, which argued the case on appeal, said state prosecutors are disappointed in the ruling and are preparing to retry Ash.
Ash’s appeal attorney did not immediately return messages Friday seeking comment.
