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Top 10 Court Stories of 2010 (you pick them)

December 22nd, 2010, 8:41 pm by

What an amazing year it’s been in terms of court stories. I had a hard time whittling this list down to ten and as you’ll see, I’ve included five more that you could argue should be on this list.

I’m interested in what you think ought to be on a list of the top 10 court stories of the year. So at the bottom of this list you’ll find a poll where you can cast your own vote. Balloting will remain open through Dec. 31.

Also, if I’ve overlooked a story, let me know. My e-mail: john.ensslin@gazette.com.

John C. Ensslin

Legal affairs reporter

The Gazette

1.  The Nozolino indictment

     A grand jury indicted anti-tax activist Bruce J. Nozolino on charges of killing a Stetson Hills man as well as trying to kill a judge and a divorce lawyer. Nozolino also has been charged with tampering with grand jury witnesses and punching an inmate in the El Paso County Jail.

Here’s a link to the story:

2.   Gudino tried as juvenile

A judge ruled that a 14-year-old boy accused of killing his younger brother and wounding their mom should be tried as a juvenile. Daniel Gudino’s attorneys argued that the boy suffered from a mental illness and may have been sleep walking when the shootings occurred. The trial is set for Feb. 7.

Here’s my story.

 3.    The Allmon verdict

A jury convicted Willie B. Allmon of raping and fatally beating his 8-month-old grandson while babysitting the boy in the grandfather’s Widefield home. Allmon, a 52-year-old registered sex offender, is now serving life in prison.

Here’s my story from the sentencing hearing.

4.    Hazard killing

Prosecutors charged a 16-year-old girl with killing Jon R. Hazard, who had been accused of sexually assaulting her. After nearly a year of negotiations and evaluation, the girl was sentenced to 2 years probation after she pleaded guilty in juvenile court to a charge of manslaughter.

Here’s my story:

5.     The Volmar verdict

Former U.S. Olympic Judo team athlete Adler Volmar won acquittal on charges that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl in his Colorado Springs hotel room after she had been drinking at a downtown nightclub. The jury, however, found Volmar guilty of two misdemeanor sex offenses.

Here’s a link to the story.

6.    Cuneo verdict

A jury found Jules Lynn Cuneo guilty of manslaughter in the beating death of her two-year-old foster child but acquitted her of first-degree murder charges. A judge sentenced Cuneo to 32 years in prison. Here’s our story on the sentencing.

7. Murder in Monument

A couple was charged in the child abuse death of a 9-year-old girl whose body was discovered buried in the muddy crawl space beneath a town home. A judge has ordered Hanif Sims and Monique Lynch to stand trial in the case.

Here’s my story on their preliminary hearing:

8.   The Xbox murder verdicts

Separate juries found two men guilty in the murder of a developmentally disabled man whose body was discovered months later in North Cheyenne Canon. Both Derek Lee Hernandez and Kyle Stott were sentenced to life in prison for what the judge called “murder for sport.” There was testimony at both trials that the pair had stolen the victim’s Xbox video game system.

Here’s my story on the second verdict.

 9.   Neo-Nazi trial

The first-degree murder trial of Kandin Eric Wilson, an alleged Neo-Nazi recruit, opened a window onto the inner workings of The American Nazi Party. A jury found Wilson guilty in the murder of a Colorado Springs restaurant manager during a bungled robbery attempt. He was sentenced to serve life in prison.

Here’s my story on the sentencing.

10. Judge tosses wiretap evidence

Fourth Judicial District Judge Deborah Grohs barred evidence gathered in a drug case via wiretaps because the order authorizing the surveillance was signed by Chief Judge Kirk Samelson, who at the time, had a son working as a prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office. A defense lawyer called this a conflict and the judge agreed. The DA has appealed her decision to the Colorado Supreme Court. That ruling is pending.

Here’s my story on the ruling.

Other possibilities:

The Big O murder

A Como teenager was ordered to stand trial on a charge of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of an employee at the Big O tire store in Monument. But during a preliminary hearing, police testified that the victim in the case had been sent home for drinking on the job moments before the shooting.

Here’s my story on the hearing.

The homeless murder trial

The trial of a man accused of beating a homeless man to death took two attempts (the first ended in a mistrial.) But eventually, a jury found Taylor Lane Gwaltney guilty of first-degree murder for bashing in the head of a man who had been sleeping on an overpass above Interstate 25. Gwaltney is now serving a life sentence.

Here’s my story on the sentencing.

Parole officer acquittal

A jury found Richard L. Riley not guilty of sexually assaulting a female parole who he was supervising. The jurors said they had problems with the credibility of the accuser, who had two prior convictions for false reporting.

Here’s my story on the verdict. 

Ex-soldier convicted in fatal shooting

A jury convicted former Army gunner Thomas Woolly of criminal negligent homicide in the shooting death of a 19-year-old Colorado Springs woman. But the jurors acquitted Woolly of the more serious charge of reckless manslaughter. His defense lawyer objected to the lesser charge being added on the eve of the verdict.

Here’s my story on the verdict.

Ex-detective pleads insanity

Former El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerald Day pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges stemming from a standoff he had with law enforcement officers in Douglas County. Day was hired back as a civilian employee at the county jail while he awaits trial.

Here’s my story on his plea.

Your top 10 court stories of 2010
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Reaction to Cuneo verdict

February 19th, 2010, 5:14 pm by

For me, one poignant moment in the aftermath of today’s verdict in the trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo, was watching the coffee table that figured so prominently in the case  being wheeled out of the courtroom.

Here’s a brief video of District Attorney’s investigator Dan Edwards loading the table into a court house elevator:

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Brightcove video.

Here’s a brief video of Cuneo’s lawyer Dennis Hartley describing some of the difficulties posed by the trial (apologies for the weak audio signal. You might have to boost your speaker to hear this) :

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And finally, here’s some reaction to the verdict from the District Attorney’s spokeswoman Kathleen Walsh:

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Closings underway in Cuneo case

February 18th, 2010, 9:58 am by

Deputy District Attorney Debbie Pearson (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

The closing arguments in the first-degree murder trial of former foster mom Jules Lynn Cuneo have begun.

Cuneo is accused in the October 2007 child abuse death of 2-year-old foster child Alizé Vick.

Deputy District Attorney Debbie Pearson is explaining the elements of the charge to the jury. The courtroom is packed with spectators, include Vick’s biological mom, Ashley Susan Lindenberger.

“Ms. Cuneo had a unique position in this case,” Pearson said. “She was a foster mother.”

Pearson goes over the various statements Cuneo gave first responders who came to her home after she reported a 2-year-old girl was unconscious.

Pearson is reviewing, witness by witness, the prosecution’s case.

She recalls how Lindenberger - upon seeing her daughter that night at the hospital – said - “that’s not my girl,” describing how skinny she had become and that her hair was falling out.

Pearson recalls a statement Cuneo gave to investigator Cliff Porter, who was the lead detective in the case.

“You see those mothers on TV and now I’m in the car,” he quoted Cuneo as saying.

Pearson recalls El Paso County Coroner Dr.Robert Bux’s  testimony that Alizé died of trauma caused by blunt force.

The totality of the evidence convinced Bux the child’s death was a homicide.

“What’s there, is there,” he said of the evidence.

Pearson goes over the medical testimony in the case. Then she wraps up.

“This case is about Alizé Vick,” she said, showing a picture of the little girl. “She deserves the protection of our laws.”

“Our laws do not vary according to the kind of family you come from,” she added. “Give Alize the protection of our laws.”

“There is one person responsible,” Pearson said. “She is Jules Lynn Cuneo.”

Defense attorney Dennis Hartley (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

Defense Attorney Dennis Hartley is making his closing argument.

“The prosecution has many hypothesis,” he said. “That’s all they are, hypothesis.”

“The evidence that speaks the loudest is the lack of evidence,” he said. “The evidence that could prove the prosecution’s theory is lacking.”

He reminded jurors of the 911 call that Cuneo made to the El Paso County Sheriff’s dispatcher on Oct. 9, 2007.

She told the truth in that call, he said.

“She is too panicked to make up a story,” he said.

The prosecution’s expert medical witnesses testified that they believed the girl’s injuries were not consistent with a short fall.

But Hartley said all of those witnesses agreed with him on one point: “that short fall injuries do cause death.”

Hartley recalled the testimony of a defense witness, who described “older blood” on the brain scans that were done on the child at Memorial Hospital that night.

“Older blood, older injuries,” Hartley said.

Hartley brings up a key piece of evidence against his client, the 2-hour videotaped interview she did with Detective Porter. In that interview, Cuneo changed her story.

She initially told investigators that Alizé had fallen from her lap while they were playing “bouncy horsey” and hit the back of her head on a coffee table.

That fall did happen, Cuneo said. But when the girl would not answer questions, Cuneo admitted tossing Alizé across the living room about five feet.

“I would advise you that back at the station, Det. Porter is calling her basically a liar,” Hartley said. “Finally, he gets something from a woman who is overly helpful.”

On the tape, Cuneo later said she had said something she should not have said.

“Sure she said something she shouldn’t have said, Hartley said. “She said something that didn’t exist.”

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick talks with fellow prosecutor Debbie Pearson. (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Cusick though hammered away at the interview in her rebuttal argument.

Cusick replayed the portion of the videotape where Cuneo admitted tossing Alizé.

“This case is not about an old injury,” Cusick said.

“This case is also not about short falls or two slight mishaps,” she added.

Cusick said prosecutors don’t know about an earlier incident in which Alizé tumbled out of Cuneo’s SUV face first in a Target parking lot.

But Cusick said they do know that Cuneo’s discription of an accidental fall while playing “horsey” was inaccurate.

Then she played the tape.

Jules Lynn Cuneo (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

“She wouldn’t talk to me. I was angry,” Cusick said, quoting Cuneo. “She still wouldn’t talk to me so I threw her.”

“It’s not about a lack of evidence,” Cusick said. “Think about the force it would take to cause that kind of injury.”

The statement Cuneo gave to Porter was voluntary, Cusick said.

“Nobody forced her into saying that. She talked of her own free will.”

Cusick noted that the defendant even drew pictures to explain what she did.

“She did not initially admit what happened to Alizé because she knew it was not right,” Cusick said.

Then she again showed a picture of Alizé to the juror.

“This is a case about an isolated, lonely girl who is at the mercy of this woman,” Cusick said, pointing to Cuneo.

The jury of 9 women and 3 men began deliberations around 11:30 a.m.

Stayed tuned to Gazette.com for the verdict.

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Cuneo defense expert: brain injury evidence inconclusive

February 17th, 2010, 9:56 am by

Jules Lynn Cuneo (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

Good afternoon court watchers. This is John Ensslin of the Gazette, reporting to you live from the 4th Judicial District court room where the first-degree murder trial of former foster mom Jules Lynn Cuneo has resumed after a five-day hiatus.

Cuneo, 36, is accused of inflicting fatal closed head injuries to 2-year-old Alizé Vick by tossing the child in a fit of anger in the living room of Cuneo’s southern El Paso County home on Oct. 9, 2007.

Today defense attorney Dennis Hartley is presenting his case to the jury.

He has called a forensic neuropathology expert from Chicago. That expert has disputed prosecution claims that the child’s injuries were inconsistent with Cuneo’s explanation that Alizé had fallen from the foster mom’s lap and hit her head on a coffee table.

Hartley asked his expert Dr. Jan Leetsma if he could determine from microscopic slides of the child’s brain scan if the injuries were accidental or non-accidental.

“Essentially no,” Leetsma replied. “I can’t turn the time machine back and answer that important question.”

Leetsma agreed that the brain scans show an impact behind the child’s head that was most likely the result of falling backwards.

“Backwards falls are nasty,” Leetsma said. “But it doesn’t tell us anything about that backward fall – whether somebody pushed the child or the child fell.”

Hartley also showed Leetsma a photograph of a dry erase white board that investigators found as they examined the Cuneo household for evidence.

Under the heading “Alizé” the white board had a column of notes that included the words “mean”, “biting” and “sleeping.” The board also noted that Alizé had not been eating.

 The notes don’t prove anything, Leetsma. But they did make him wonder if the child had been suffering seizures prior to the injury that led to Cuneo’s arrest.

Leetsma has a kind of folksy manner in his presentation. He uses a lot of colorful metaphors and imagery to explain to the jury what they are looking at.

For example, he described the microscopic slides he examined as “salami slices” and the blood cells as “poker chip red.”

He compared analyzing Alize’s injury to a tornado hitting the courthouse building and people trying to examine the debris later to determine exactly what happened.

(Ironic side note: a microburst did hit the court house during the summer and damaged the very courtroom where the trial is taking place.)

He described his role of that of a “Monday morning quarterback” second-guess the work done during the autopsy and afterwards.

During part of Leetsma’s testimony, El Paso County Coroner Robert Bux was sitting in the audience taking notes. To continue the analogy, Bux would be the quarterback whose office Leetsma is second-guessing.

Deputy District Attonrey Debbie Pearson (photo by Jerilee Bennett)

 

Under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Debbie Pearson, Leetsma acknowledged there were limits to what he knows about the case. He said he can only offer opinions based upon the historical records of the case.

“At some point, a consulting pathologist, such as myself, can’t really beat the bushes and look at those historical things,” he said.

He also said he was not familiar with all the details of an interview in which Cuneo admitted to a sheriff’s investigator that she threw the child across the room with enough force that she landed about five feet away on the other side of the coffee table.

He also disclosed his expert witness fees, which are about $400 per hour for consulting and $600 per hour for sworn testimony.

 The trial has taken a lunch break. I’ll be covering another unrelated criminal case this afternoon, so this live blog will be on pause until later this afternoon.

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Juror excused from foster mom murder trial

February 10th, 2010, 2:28 pm by

The jury panel in the first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo is down to 13.

 

Fourth Judicial District Judge Larry Schwartz explained in court this afternoon that one of the jurors – a woman who had been having neurological problems – has been excused from the rest of the trial, which is now in its fourth day of testimony.

 

I’m not sure whether this was the same juror who fainted last Thursday during the first day of testimony.

 

Now there are 12 jurors and one alternate hearing the case.

The trial recessed for the day after about just an hour of testimony because of some scheduling problems with witnesses. Testimony resumes tomorrow morning.

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Live blog: Cuneo friend recalls phone calls

February 10th, 2010, 2:07 pm by

This is John Ensslin at the Gazette.

 

Testimony has resumed in the first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo.

 

Cuneo is the 36-year-old El Paso County woman accused in the October 2007 child abuse death of Alize Vick, a 2-year-old foster child.

 

I’ll be live blogging the trial this afternoon.

 

The first witness is Andrea Cohn, a woman who befriended Cuneo in their junior year of high school.

 

After drifting apart for several years after graduation, they reconnected in 2004. The two stay-at-home moms had shared interests.

 

In September 2007, Cuneo was raising her two twin daughters plus foster children Alize and her younger brother.

 

When asked about Cuneo’s demeanor during that time, Cohn said: “She seemed a little bit – I wouldn’t say stressed out – but with the coming of the school year, spread thin.”

 

On Oct. 9, 2007, Cuneo called Cohn to tell her that Alize had tumbled out of Cuneo’s vehicle in the parking lot of a Target store.

 

“She was concerned. It didn’t seem like an emergency situation at the time,” Cohn said.

 

There were two more calls from Cuneo that night, Cohn said.

 

She called while on her way to Memorial Hospital, where Alize had been airlifted.

 

Cohen said Cuneo told her the girl had fallen from her lap and hit a table.

 

The next call came around 2 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007.

 

At that time, Cuneo asked her friend if she knew someone who could help her post bond.

 

Alize died later that same day of a closed head injury.

 

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In other news…

February 10th, 2010, 10:54 am by

The first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo is in recess until 1:30 p.m. today, so I thought to take a moment to catch up on other news around the court house.

 

Perhaps the biggest story I’ve missed this week is the re-opening of the cafeteria in the court house basement.

 

Dubbed “Paul’s Café”, it offers a hot breakfast and lunch, plus a kind of convenience store mid-section for people just wanting to grab a soda, a sandwich or a Slim Jim.

 

Gone are the previous owners Ed and Bev, who were lovely people. Gone too it would seem are the $1 cup of coffee and Ed’s unique specials like pierogies and red cabbage or Cuban pork dishes with black beans and plantains.

 

But the new operators are staying open past the lunch hour, which is a welcome development for those of us court house denizens looking for an afternoon cup of joe without venturing out into the snow.

 

New Magistrate

 

Former senior Deputy District Attorney Jayne Candea-Ramsey has been appointed magistrate. She’ll be sworn in on Friday Feb. 12 at 4 p.m. in 4th Judicial District Judge Thomas Kane’s courtroom 406 South.

 

Candea-Ramsey was one of the two prosecutors last year who tried the case of Darneau Pepper. He was convicted in a double homicide and sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 908 years in prison.

 

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Jury sees Cuneo home interior

February 9th, 2010, 3:17 pm by

Jurors in the Jules Lynn Cuneo first-degree murder trial are looking at a series of photographs over her southern El Paso County home as it appeared on Oct. 9, 2007.

 

That’s the night she called Sheriff’s deputies to her home at 11580 Calle Corvo on a report of an unconscious two-year-old foster child.

 

The child, Alize Vick died the next day. Cuneo, 36, told deputies the girl had fallen from her lap and hit her head on a coffee table.

 

The series of photographs taken by crime scene investigators show a somewhat cluttered household with clothes piled on a couch and boxes stacked against a wall. There is a large dog in some of the pictures. Several shots also show the coffee table.

 

The photographs also showed the Ford Expedition, out of which Alizé allegedly had tumbled earlier that day, landing a parking lot outside a Target store.

 

One photograph of a dry eraser white board showed the name “Alize” on the top of a column of words that included “accident” “mean” “biting” and “sleeping.”

 

Under cross examination by Cuneo’s attorney Dennis Hartley, the crime scene investigator testified that the floor around the coffee table had plush carpet.

 

Jurors also saw pictures taken by investigators two days later after someone apparently had cleaned up the house.

 

That prompted a question from a juror who questioned why the house was no longer treated like a crime scene. The investigator replied that they relinquished the house back to the homeowner after investigators were done that first night.

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Live blog: the foster mom murder trial

February 9th, 2010, 10:09 am by

Good morning court watchers.

 

This morning I’m live blogging from the first-degree murder trial of Jules Lynn Cuneo.

 

She’s the 36-year-old former foster mom accused in the October 2007 child abuse death of 2-year-old Alizé Vick.

 

So far, this morning, jurors have heard from a sheriff’s deputy who responded to Cuneo’s home after she made a 911 call on Oct. 9, 2007 to report that the child was unconscious. The girl died the next day.

 

The deputy testified that Cuneo’s demeanor during the incident ranged from calm to hysterical to distressed.

 

At the moment, a radiologist from Memorial Hospital is explaining brain scans taken of Vick before she died.

 

Dr. Stacy Greenspan is describing the bleeding on the brain that the scans uncovered.

 

Greenspan said the type of injuries she found were not the kind that would after resulted from the child bumping her head on a coffee table or falling out of a car.

 

Those are two of the explanations Cuneo gave to deputies shortly after the incident.

 

Under cross-examination by Cuneo’s lawyer Dennis Hartley, Greenspan acknowledged she did not know the rate of the impact that would have resulted from either fall.

 

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The Cuneo interview

February 8th, 2010, 10:34 am by

People have this idea from television shows like “The Closer” that interrogations with murder suspects go a certain way.

 

Usually, the detective browbeats the suspect or tricks them with a line of questioning and shazam, there’s a confession right before the commercial break.

 

In real life, it doesn’t quite go that way.

 

Take El Paso County Sheriff’s Investigator Cliff Porter’s Oct. 9, 2007 interview with Jules Lynn Cuneo. Captured on video tape, it was a two-hour plus study in patience and persistence.

 

Porter started out slow, asking a lot of open-ended questions of Cuneo several hours after she had called 911 to report her 2-year-old foster child was unconscious. The child died the next day.

 

He also obtained some interesting biographical detail, such as the fact that Cuneo had five children who died in utero. Her twins were the survivors of a set of quadruplets.

 

He began by focusing on the foster child, Alizé Vick and her biological parents.

 

Cuneo told him that Alizé was named after a brand of liquor. She told him how Alizé was afraid of people, especially men. She claimed that the girl was less playful after visiting her grandmother and couldn’t stand to be separated from Cuneo.

 

But then about an hour into the interview, Porter pivoted and confronted Cuneo with two facts that he said did not add up.

 

First the severe injuries the child had sustained were inconsistent with a two-foot-fall out of Cuneo’s lap.

 

Second there was no way all the events Cuneo described – Alizé falling in a Target parking lot, coming home, changing clothes and the fall – could have occurred over the span of 20 minutes as she claimed.

 

Porter began turning up the heat, suggesting that as a single mom with four kids – two foster children and two of her own – was under extraordinary stress and thus might have shaken the girl.

 

“No sir, that is not what happened,” Cuneo replied. “I understand what you’re saying and I’m telling you the truth.”

 

Cuneo claimed to have no reason to lie. Porter pointed out that she did: “a little two-year-old baby with major brain damage is lying in a hospital,” he said.

 

“I don’t think you’re being honest about how Alizé received her injury,” he told her point blank.

 

“So what do you want me to do? To say that I’m guilty,” Cuneo asked.

 

“I think you made a mistake and you hurt the child,” he replied.

 

They went back and forth like this for several minutes.

 

Porter told Cuneo, “I’m not here to judge you.

 

Cuneo replied, “You’re doing your job, I appreciate that.”

 

Finally Cuneo started to budge off her original story.

 

“I’m thinking back,” she said. “Am I allowed to do that?”

 

Porter quoted Carl Jung and his theory of collective unconscious. Sometimes people’s minds protect them from hard facts by creating a memory that is fuzzy.

 

He encouraged her to start over with a clean slate and tell him what happened.

 

Out it came.

 

“I…I…I pushed her,” Cuneo stammered.

 

“So you pushed her out of anger, is that fair to say?” Porter asked.

 

“Mmmm hmm,” she replied.

 

“The fact that you made a mistake doesn’t mean you’re a bad person,” he offered.

 

“Yes it does,” she said.

 

Still, the details emerged fitfully as Porter continued to prod.

 

“A throw is very different than a push,” he told her. “You and I both know that.”

 

“I’m terrified,” she said. “I’m really scared right now because I don’t know what you’re going to do to me.”

 

Porter tried to be understanding.

 

“You’re no Al Capone right?” he asked. “I understand your fear….You made a mistake when you weren’t completely truthful up front.”

 

Porter encouraged her to start over again, and out came many of the statements you’ll find in my story on the trial. Click here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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