Feb. 14, the day she testified<\/a>, the woman was visibly nervous and emotional; she only made it as far as telling the jury she had been in a relationship with Strawn from 2007 to 2013 before she referred to domestic violence \u2014 an allegation that had been barred from testimony during the trial.<\/p>\nSoutiere had sought to block the ex-girlfriend\u2019s testimony altogether, arguing that any evidence she might present about Strawn\u2019s owning a gun was stale and that there was a \u201ccolossal risk\u201d she would introduce evidence of domestic violence.<\/p>\n
According to Soutiere, the witness was obviously volatile and Paige missed several opportunities to ensure she would follow the court\u2019s instructions about limiting her testimony.<\/p>\n
The woman appeared \u201cshaky and timid,\u201d Soutiere said, adding that after she was sworn in, she started to fall apart and then cry.<\/p>\n
At that point, Soutiere approached the bench and objected to the testimony, but was overruled. When questioning resumed, the witness made the inadmissible statement about domestic violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was not a negligent rookie mistake and, at the very least, constitutes gross negligence on the part of the prosecution,\u201d Soutiere wrote.<\/p>\n
In a further pleading, Soutiere took her arguments one step further, raising the possibility that the prosecutor allowed the testimony in order to force a mistrial or introduce \u201cdemeanor evidence\u201d in front of the jury. The witness\u2019 evident terror, coupled with the knowledge of her relationship with Strawn and his possession of a shotgun, could very well have become the most important factor in the decision-making process for the jury, she argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state has claimed that they did everything in their power to prevent the witness from testifying in the manner she did. That is simply not the case,\u201d Soutiere wrote. \u201cThe prosecutor should have seen this coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to determine whether the witness was adequately prepared, Soutiere has asked for an evidentiary hearing, to include testimony from the witness and Paige, as well as the victim\/witness paralegal who was present during their meetings.<\/p>\n
Paige opposed Soutiere\u2019s motion to dismiss, arguing she did everything in her power to prevent the witness from making any inadmissible statements and that there was no requisite element of intentional misconduct on her part.<\/p>\n
According to Paige, after a status hearing in which the limitations of the testimony were hashed out, she met with the witness in person. Paige instructed the witness on the specifics of her testimony and outlined what questions she was to be asked \u2014 and the witness indicated she understood.<\/p>\n
Immediately prior to the witness entering the courtroom, Paige wrote, she reiterated her instructions and made it clear the woman was only to testify to the questions and not to any domestic violence.<\/p>\n
Paige claimed that the witness did become emotional but then appeared to compose herself, answering a series of limited questions \u201cwithout further emotion and without elaboration\u201d before mentioning the domestic violence when asked how long she lived with Strawn.<\/p>\n
Paige argued that based on the witness\u2019 behavior on the stand, there was no indication she would suddenly veer from the court\u2019s instructions on limiting her testimony.<\/p>\n
She said double jeopardy would only apply in cases of deliberate prosecutorial misconduct such as precipitating a mistrial in a case that is going badly, adding that \u201cat the risk of sounding overly confident \u2026 the State would submit that the trial was going very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Pallenberg to prohibit a new trial for Strawn would only punish the victims in the case, Paige argued.<\/p>\n
Strawn\u2019s retrial currently is set to start with jury selection on Oct. 2, with a pre-trial conference set for Sept. 22.<\/p>\n
Strawn, 33, faces charges of first-degree and second-degree murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, third-degree assault and weapons misconduct.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
Contact reporter Liz Kellar at 523-2246 or liz.kellar@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the ex-girlfriend of murder defendant Christopher Strawn blurted out a revelation of domestic violence during her brief testimony on the stand, she brought his homicide trial to a crashing halt. The jurors were immediately sent back to the jury room while Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg determined that there were grounds for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6055"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}