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A 3rd District Court judge has found no basis to appoint a new defense team for prison inmate Curtis Allgier, accused of killing a Corrections officer four years ago.
In a 10-page decision filed Thursday, Judge Paul Maughan denied a defense request to withdraw from the case, saying he found no evidence that Allgier's attorney-client relationship had been irreparably harmed.
The controversy arose following a November story in The Salt Lake Tribune quoting a Salt Lake County jail officer who said Allgier's attorneys had gone behind his back to request extra security during jail visits because Allgier had threatened their lives. Cook would not disclose to The Tribune whether Allgier's current legal team made the request, or if it came from one of Allgier's former attorneys.
"If [my attorneys] really said that, I don't trust them," Allgier told Maughan during a Feb. 9 hearing on the issue.
But Maughan noted that Allgier indicated to him he had never made such threats. And, during a bench conference between attorneys and the judge, defense counsel "represented ... that none of defendant's current attorneys had made such a request of the jail," the judge wrote.
A different attorney-client conflict issue arose early on in the case when one of Allgier's Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association [LDA] lawyers revealed having a close personal relationship with the victim, 60-year-old Corrections Officer Stephen Anderson. That attorney, Michael Peterson, was allowed to withdraw from the case.
Two other attorneys later withdrew from the case because they left LDA, which represents indigent defendants, to go into private practice.
Allgier also had requested new attorneys based on trust issues in 2009, claiming a mitigation investigator for LDA disclosed confidential information to a potential witness.
Anderson was killed with his own gun on June 25, 2007, while escorting Allgier to a visit to a Salt Lake City medical clinic.
Allgier is charged with capital murder, which carries the potential for the death penalty, and seven other felonies.
A monthlong jury trial is set to begin May 9.
The most recent attorney-client trust issue has left other pretrial issues unresolved, including whether Allgier's many facial tattoos — swastikas, neo-Nazi symbols and the words "Skin Head" written across his forehead — will be covered by makeup during trial.
Allgier also has complained to the court that jail officials are videotaping his private meetings with his lawyers and are reading his legal mail.
A letter from Allgier, forwarded to The Tribune by a female friend, states that his attorneys have actually requested "less security" and an end to what he called "illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of out attorney/client visits."
Allgier also insisted: "I have never threatened anyone, and especially not my attorneys."
A white supremacist, Allgier closed his letter by writing, "Skincerely, Curtis M. Allgier," with each "S" drawn as a lightning bolt and by using small lightning bolts to dot each "I" in his name.