Opinion ID: 1611086
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 24

Heading: First Degree Murder Charge

Text: At the March 23, 2004 hearing at which the district court reappointed Ware to represent Reeves in his retrial, and in hearings held thereafter, the court noted that Ware and Reeves had an attorney-client relationship based on Ware's representation of Reeves on the attempted simple escape charge. [173] At the time of his reappointment, Ware announced to the court that he knew of no conflict of interest which would prevent him from representing Reeves on the first degree murder charge. [174] The state gave the defense pretrial written notice of its intention to use the attempted simple escape conviction as evidence of Reeves' character and propensities in the penalty phase, should a penalty phase become necessary upon Reeves' conviction on the first degree murder charge. [175] A pretrial hearing was held to determine what information the state would be allowed to admit into evidence on Reeves' prior convictions. At that time, then-defense counsel da Ponte indicated at the hearing that Ware, whose office represented three of the possible inmate witnesses on the escape charge, informed her that he was advising his clients to assert their Fifth Amendment rights and would not allow da Ponte to speak to the inmates on behalf of Reeves. [176] At the conclusion of the hearing, the district court ruled that the state's evidence of Reeves' attempted simple escape conviction would be admissible in the penalty phase of the first degree murder trial. [177] Reeves' first trial did not hold a penalty phase because the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on guilt. Consequently, there was no mention of the escape conviction in Reeves' first trial. Although the evidence of the escape conviction was ruled admissible prior to the retrial of Reeves' first degree murder charge, the state, perhaps anticipating the reversal of the escape conviction, refrained from introducing any evidence of that escape conviction in the penalty phase on retrial.