Opinion ID: 2508357
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ipsen's use of divergent factual theories was intentional

Text: Ipsen testified at the reference hearing, as he stated in his earlier declaration, that his presentation of inconsistent theories was not intentional. He noted that in the interval between the trials he probably handled other cases and described himself as an instinct[ive] litigator who did not typically follow detailed notes or a script in his examination of witnesses. When he made his closing argument in the Sakarias case, he did not have in mind what he had argued to the Waidla jury: the last thing I'm thinking about when I'm arguing in one trial is trying to remember what I argued in another trial. The referee found Ipsen's claim of inadvertence unconvincing: Despite a lapse of eight months between trials, it is unlikely that a competent and committed prosecutor like Ipsen, handling the severed trials of two defendants jointly charged with capital murder, would simply forget at the second trial what specific factual theory of the gruesome murder he presented at the first.... [T]he Waidla and Sakarias trials were Ipsen's first murder cases, his first death penalty cases. He was depressed about the death verdict in Waidla for approximately two weeks.[ [1] ] It is improbable that his factual depiction of the killing in Waidla would have totally escaped his notice in Sakarias. Moreover, the assertion of inadvertence in presenting the inconsistent theories implies a level of carelessness that is simply not present in Ipsen's prosecution of Sakarias. Substantial evidence supports the referee's conclusion. Ipsen testified at the hearing that he always, including at the time of Waidla's trial, had a belief that Mr. Sakarias inflicted hatchet wounds in the back room. Ipsen also testified he probably had the Sakarias statement, which contained that admission, before Waidla's trial. In addition, Waidla's statement to police, admitted at his trial, indicated that Sakarias had taken the hatchet into the bedroom after they dragged Viivi Piirisild there. Yet, in argument to the Waidla jury, Ipsen not only did not suggest Sakarias had ever used the hatchet, instead impliedly attributing all such blows to Waidla, but expressly argued Waidla had struck Viivi repeatedly with the blade, inflicting not only the hemorrhagic death blow but also the additional non-hemorrhagic chop wounds to the head. As Ipsen, according to his testimony, believed at the time that Sakarias had struck some of the hatchet blows, and as Waidla's statement, which was in evidence, would have supported such an argument (or at least an argument that Sakarias might have struck Viivi with the hatchet in the bedroom), the inference, as the referee found, is clear: Ipsen set aside that belief, and argued that Waidla inflicted all the hatchet wounds, thus enhancing the theory of Waidla's culpability. At Sakarias's trial, of course, the prosecutor introduced, and relied upon, Sakarias's confession, which included his account of taking the hatchet into the bedroom and striking Viivi twice with it. But Ipsen also attributed to Sakarias the hemorrhagic, antemortem chopping wound, despite having proven and argued in Waidla's trial, some months earlier, that Viivi was already dead when moved to the bedroom. As the referee found, on substantial evidence, Ipsen intentionally refrained from putting the same evidence before the Sakarias jury. The inference is therefore strong that his argument to the Sakarias jury, that Sakarias had inflicted the hemorrhagic chopping wound, was also intentional.