Where Justice Goes to Die

Federal Court is in session.

Ten years ago, a 21-year-old woman named Tonya Hart was shotto death in a Moscow, Idaho trailer court. Two years later, a local man named David J. Meisner, whoconfessed to the crime during a recorded police interrogation, was convicted ofmurder and sentenced to life in prison. Last month, the Idaho State SupremeCourt ruled that trial judge John Stegner committed a reversible error when herefused to allow the defense to present evidence that someone else might havepulled the trigger on the gun used to kill Miss Hart. 

Anew trial for Meisner is currently underway in Moscow. The prosecution hasfinished presenting evidence, and the defense is expected to take at least twoweeks presenting its case. The first witness summoned to testify on Meisner’sbehalf is Dr. Richard Ofshe, an emeritus professor at the University ofCalifornia-Berkley, a nationally respected expert in the field of falseconfessions. 

The taped confession is the central piece ofevidence against Meisner in what the prosecutioncharacterizes as a case of “murder for hire.” 

Hart’s ex-boyfriend, Jesse Linderman,supposedly offered to pay Meisner $1,000 to murder the young woman, with a $100bonus if the killing took place before Christmas. Thecharges against Linderman were dropped for a lack of evidence. As the statesupreme court noted, the only evidence tying Linderman to the crime wasMeisner’s disputed confession.

During the trial, Judge Stegner refused to permit thedefense to present evidence that a man named Lane Thomas, who had repeatedlyconfessed to the murder, was the individual who had shot Miss Hart. Stegner didn’texplain why Meisner’s confession was uniquely credible. The Idaho Supreme Courtruled that by granting the prosecution’s motion to exclude Thomas’sconfessions, Judge Stegner had violated Meisner’s right to present a defense,as protected by the Sixth Amendment. 

In this “murder for hire” case, the supposed triggerman wasconvicted on the basis of a confession that was considered inadequate toestablish the guilt of the alleged instigator of the plot. However, in the newtrial the defense will have be permitted adequate time to present its case;this includes testimony from expert witnesses like Dr. Ofshe.

The Tonya Hart murder case is practically a photographicnegative of another high-profile murder for hire case from northern Idaho: The supposedplot by attorney Edgar Steele to hire a handyman named Larry Fairfax to murderhis wife Cyndi by planting a pipe bomb on her SUV. 

In the latter case, however, the confessed bomber, who actedas a “cooperating informant” with the FBI, was sentenced to a mere 27 months inwhat amounts to a halfway house for possession of an unregistered firearm. Mr.Steele, a 66-year-old man who has survived prostate cancer and a nearly fatalcoronary aneurysm, was sentenced on November 9 to 50 years in federal prison. While Meisner wasn't permitted to mount a defense in his original trial, the re-trial offers him a chance to exercise that right. Steele will most likely die in prison before he is afforded a similar opportunity. 

Edgar Steele, who describes himself as the "attorney to the damned," has made a career out of defending reviled clients, such as the Aryan Nation. His political views and professional associations have made him a widely reviled figure -- but they do nothing to establish his guilt. The same is true of the supposition-rich and substance-poor case presented against him in court.

The prosecution’s case against Steele depended entirely ontwo mutually dependent pieces of defective evidence. The first was theaccusation of the confessed bomber, Fairfax, who was accused by Steele and hisfamily of stealing a large quantity of silver and then framing thecontroversial lawyer in order to conceal his crime. The second piece ofevidence was a third-generation copy of a digital recording made by the FBI ofa conversation in which Steele and Fairfax supposedly discussed the plan tokill Cyndi. 

Fairfax’s guilt is demonstrated by a huge volume of physicalevidence, including the defective pipe bomb whose existence he concealed fromthe FBI until it was discovered on the undercarriage of Cyndi’s vehicle duringan oil change. Absent the recorded conversation between Fairfax and Steele onJune 9, 2010, the murder for hire case against Steele would disintegrate. 

Prior to the trial, the FBI recording was examined by Dr. George Papcun, a forensic scientist who has advisednumerous law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Dr. Papcun discernedhundreds of “transients” and other anomalies in the pre-trial version of theFBI recording. He concluded that there was “a reasonable degree of scientificprobability that [the recordings] do not represent a true and validrepresentation of reality and they are unreliable.” 

Winmill (l.), seen here, appropriately, with a Soviet-era Russian Judge.

 This expertassessment would have been devastating to the prosecution. This is probably whyJudge Winmill, during Steele’sSovietesque trial in federal court last May, exerted himself to prevent it from being shared with thejury. 

At the time of the trial, Dr. Papcun was vacationing in Bora Bora. On May2, Winmill ruled that Papcun would be permitted to offer testimony by way of avideo teleconference at a U.S. Consulate the following day. 

That ruling causedTraci Whelan, the federal commissarina presiding over the prosecution, to stompoff into a corner, stick out her lower lip, and began to sniffle. Winmill – whoeither believes in mysticalbilocation, or (more likely) subscribes to a totalitarian view of the law-- reversed himself, ruling that Papcun had to be present in the Boise courtroomno later than 8:30 a.m. on May 4.

 This wasn’t the end of Winmill’s corruptsolicitude for the prosecution. The Judge also permitted Whelan and her comrades topresent the videotaped and translated testimony of a Ukrainian woman namedTatyana Loginova, who claimed that Steele was conducting an online affairwith her. Steele maintained that his online conversations with Loginova – who advertisedherself as a mail-order bride -- were research for a book about internationalsex trafficking. Implausible though that account might seem to some people, itwas validated by Steele’s friends and family – including his wife Cyndi, whohas loudly and consistently protested that her husband is innocent. 

Lying by headline: The "victim" is alive, and supports her husband.

 Cyndi’s role – indeed, her very presence – underscores the mostcritical contrast with the Tonya Hart murder. In the Edgar Steele case, the “victim”is alive and well. Indeed, there is no victim, at least as that term was usedby the prosecution. 

“We have a great marriage,” Cyndi Steele told Winmill duringthe sentencing hearing. “I am not a victim of my husband because my husband didnothing wrong. I am a victim of the government.”

When it was announced that Edgar Steele’s murder-for-hiretrial in Boise would be heard by Judge Winmill, informedcourt-watchers in Idaho knew that the proceedings would be a show trial – a spectaclescripted by Franz Kafka and directed by Andrei Vyshinsky.  Lynn Winmill’s courtroom is where justicegoes to die. The family of the late Verl Jones, who owned a family ranch nearthe Montana border, can testify that his description is untainted by hyperbole.

For many years, Judge Winmill has been a stalwart ally ofthe Western Watersheds Project (WWP), a foundation-funded radical environmentalgroup that has played a key role in the eco-Jihad against property rights inIdaho. WWP has filed several lawsuits intended to shut down human use of landsthat – in defiance of the Constitution – are owned and controlled by thefederal government. 

Writing in the Spring 2008 issue of Range magazine, StateRepresentative Judy Boyle described Winmill as the “WWP’s sugar daddy who veryseldom rules against them, often incorporating pieces of WWP’s briefs tojustify his decisions.” In fact, when the WWP files a claim under theEndangered Species Act, Winmill generally won’t even require the group topresent evidence before ruling in its favor.

This was what happened in the case of Mr. Jones, who wassued by WWP in 2001 over an irrigation ditch he had dug forty years earlier.Exercising his federally recognized right to use water from Otter Creek, Jonesdug the ditch on his own property to grow hay. The WWP claimed that the diversion of water harmed the endangered bulltrout, despite the fact that none existed in Otter Creek. Without requiring theWWP to show evidence to support its claims, Winmill ordered Jones to stopirrigating his hay fields, and to pay the WWP’s legal fees. 

"I'm a victim of the government": Cyndi Steele.

The requirements imposed by Winmill on the 85-year-old Joneswere akin to Pharaoh’s spiteful order that the Hebrew slaves be required tomake bricks without straw. 

The loss of Jones’s hay crop threw the ranch into afatal economic tailspin. Unmoved by the rancher’s plight, Winmill ordered himto provide the WWP with a list of all his assets, which the eco-radical groupsold in order to pay its court costs. The stress and frustration literallykilled the elderly rancher.

Seattle-based litigator Russell Brooks of the Pacific LegalFoundation took the case before the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals,which overturned Winmill’s decision. 

“The 9^th Circuit judges ruled thatactual evidence of a species being harmed must be presented, not just alleged,before a judge can legally order an injunction,” recalls Rep. Boyle – aprinciple that Winmill is intelligent enough to understand, but sufficientlycorrupt and arrogant to ignore. 

Winmill’s behavior in the Edgar Steele case was of a piecewith his treatment of Verl Jones, and any honest federal appellate court -- a species last seen keeping company with the unicorn -- would overturnthe conviction and order a new trial. It’s quite reasonable to suspect thatWinmill, a recidivist persecutor of sick, powerless, elderly defendants, hascynically calculated that Steele, like Jones, will expire before being granted an actual trial.  

Obiter Dicta

The next issue of Republic magazine -- for which I serve as managing editor -- will have a detailed cover story examining the Edgar Steele case. 

Grateful as I am for the Republic gig, I'm compelled to point out that it doesn't offer an extravagant paycheck -- so your help in supporting Pro Libertate is still desperately needed and emphatically appreciated! 

Dum spiro, pugno!