HarryB
Member
The original thread on this got a little heated and closed during the summer.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=83537&highlight=dog+walker
Here is an update:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1222hiker22.html
Charges against hiker criticized
Lawyer: Indictment gained unfairly
Peter Corbett
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 22, 2004 12:00 AM
Prosecutors slanted grand jury testimony to gain a second-degree murder indictment against a former Valley teacher who claims self-defense in a trail shooting north of Payson, according to a defense motion filed last week in Flagstaff by the attorney for 57-year-old Harold Fish.
The retired Tolleson High School teacher and father of seven is accused of killing Grant Kuenzli, 43, in a confrontation May 11 on the Pine Canyon Trail involving the dead man's three dogs.
Melvin McDonald, Fish's attorney, is asking Judge Mark Moran of Coconino County Superior County to overturn the July 22 indictment. McDonald charges that prosecutors omitted information favorable to Fish's self-defense claim.
The defense motion attacks the prosecutors' case on how quickly Kuenzli moved toward Fish and prosecutors' suggestions that Fish could have used his hiking stick or martial-arts skills he learned in college to defend himself.
McDonald disputes prosecutors' suggestions that four campers, who were a half-mile away, would have heard Fish and Kuenzli yelling at each other if the shooting occurred as Fish described it. The campers told investigators that they heard one shot, a pause, and then three more shots ringing through the woods, but did not hear barking dogs or shouting.
Lead prosecutor Michael Lessler of the Coconino County Attorney's Office said he could not respond to McDonald's specific charges because the case should be litigated in court.
"I will say that in general Mr. McDonald's motion is based on incomplete information, is misleading and, in many respects, is based on irrelevant information," Lessler said.
County prosecutors have until Jan. 14 to respond to the motion. Oral arguments are scheduled Jan. 25 in Flagstaff.
The high-profile case has stirred strong emotions in Arizona about the safety of hiking in the national forest, the threats created by unleashed dogs and the appropriate use of a gun for self-defense.
Fish's defense, if the case goes to trial, will hinge on whether a jury believes that the father of seven children acted reasonably in using his semiautomatic pistol to stop Kuenzli, who Fish said charged at him yelling death threats.
Fish was neither injured by the dogs nor by Kuenzli, who collapsed at his feet and died before paramedics arrived at the remote forested hillside.
Dead man lived in car
Fish was completing a six-hour hike on that day around 6:30 p.m., and Kuenzli, a former firefighter who was living out of his car, was camped near the trailhead.
Kuenzli was not carrying a weapon. But McDonald said in his motion that Kuenzli had an 8-inch screwdriver in his back pocket that could have been used as a deadly weapon.
Investigators believe that the two men were about 56 feet apart when the dogs charged Fish.
McDonald said that prosecutors misled the jury with information about Fish's martial-arts training.
They were not told that the initial lead detective, a martial-arts instructor, said that using martial arts was not a viable option for Fish because of the terrain and the charging dogs, and because Fish's skills were weak.
Fish earned a second-degree brown belt 25 years ago while studying karate for four semesters at Brigham Young University.
He told the grand jury that he had not been involved in karate since college, other than acting as a non-teaching adviser to a high school martial-arts club, and did not think he could have used his martial-arts skills to stop Kuenzli.
"Remember, I was on loose rock on a steep hill, and I was tired and I'm 57 years old," Fish testified. "I got bad knees. I got bad ankles."
Warning shot fired
Instead, Fish said he fired a warning shot at the dogs, which scattered.
Fish said Kuenzli then charged at him at full speed. But Jeff Palmer, a Coconino County investigator, determined that Kuenzli was only "loping" down the hill.
Palmer estimated Kuenzli's speed at about 8 miles per hour, which is important in determining how quickly he might have charged at Fish.
McDonald also ridiculed prosecutors over a July 20 sound re-enactment of the shooting.
In the re-creation, deputies were able to hear voices from the shooting scene a half-mile away.
McDonald said weather conditions were far different in July than on the windy late afternoon of the shooting, rendering the results meaningless.
In presenting his arguments, McDonald included an affidavit from Tom House, Fish's martial-arts instructor at BYU and a retired prison warden. In presenting himself as a self-defense expert, House concluded that Fish's shooting of Kuenzli "was the only prudent action reasonably available" to Fish.
Not prudent action
However, House also stated that "firing a warning shot in the direction of the dogs was not a prudent course of action."
In addition to McDonald's latest motion, the former U.S. attorney for Arizona is seeking to obtain Kuenzli's mental health records.
He alleges that Kuenzli had shown a pattern of unstable and violent behavior.
Prosecutors are fighting to keep those records sealed on privacy grounds and because they say the documents are irrelevant.
That issue will also be on the table when oral arguments are presented next month.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or (602) 444-6862.original thread original threadhere
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=83537&highlight=dog+walker
Here is an update:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1222hiker22.html
Charges against hiker criticized
Lawyer: Indictment gained unfairly
Peter Corbett
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 22, 2004 12:00 AM
Prosecutors slanted grand jury testimony to gain a second-degree murder indictment against a former Valley teacher who claims self-defense in a trail shooting north of Payson, according to a defense motion filed last week in Flagstaff by the attorney for 57-year-old Harold Fish.
The retired Tolleson High School teacher and father of seven is accused of killing Grant Kuenzli, 43, in a confrontation May 11 on the Pine Canyon Trail involving the dead man's three dogs.
Melvin McDonald, Fish's attorney, is asking Judge Mark Moran of Coconino County Superior County to overturn the July 22 indictment. McDonald charges that prosecutors omitted information favorable to Fish's self-defense claim.
The defense motion attacks the prosecutors' case on how quickly Kuenzli moved toward Fish and prosecutors' suggestions that Fish could have used his hiking stick or martial-arts skills he learned in college to defend himself.
McDonald disputes prosecutors' suggestions that four campers, who were a half-mile away, would have heard Fish and Kuenzli yelling at each other if the shooting occurred as Fish described it. The campers told investigators that they heard one shot, a pause, and then three more shots ringing through the woods, but did not hear barking dogs or shouting.
Lead prosecutor Michael Lessler of the Coconino County Attorney's Office said he could not respond to McDonald's specific charges because the case should be litigated in court.
"I will say that in general Mr. McDonald's motion is based on incomplete information, is misleading and, in many respects, is based on irrelevant information," Lessler said.
County prosecutors have until Jan. 14 to respond to the motion. Oral arguments are scheduled Jan. 25 in Flagstaff.
The high-profile case has stirred strong emotions in Arizona about the safety of hiking in the national forest, the threats created by unleashed dogs and the appropriate use of a gun for self-defense.
Fish's defense, if the case goes to trial, will hinge on whether a jury believes that the father of seven children acted reasonably in using his semiautomatic pistol to stop Kuenzli, who Fish said charged at him yelling death threats.
Fish was neither injured by the dogs nor by Kuenzli, who collapsed at his feet and died before paramedics arrived at the remote forested hillside.
Dead man lived in car
Fish was completing a six-hour hike on that day around 6:30 p.m., and Kuenzli, a former firefighter who was living out of his car, was camped near the trailhead.
Kuenzli was not carrying a weapon. But McDonald said in his motion that Kuenzli had an 8-inch screwdriver in his back pocket that could have been used as a deadly weapon.
Investigators believe that the two men were about 56 feet apart when the dogs charged Fish.
McDonald said that prosecutors misled the jury with information about Fish's martial-arts training.
They were not told that the initial lead detective, a martial-arts instructor, said that using martial arts was not a viable option for Fish because of the terrain and the charging dogs, and because Fish's skills were weak.
Fish earned a second-degree brown belt 25 years ago while studying karate for four semesters at Brigham Young University.
He told the grand jury that he had not been involved in karate since college, other than acting as a non-teaching adviser to a high school martial-arts club, and did not think he could have used his martial-arts skills to stop Kuenzli.
"Remember, I was on loose rock on a steep hill, and I was tired and I'm 57 years old," Fish testified. "I got bad knees. I got bad ankles."
Warning shot fired
Instead, Fish said he fired a warning shot at the dogs, which scattered.
Fish said Kuenzli then charged at him at full speed. But Jeff Palmer, a Coconino County investigator, determined that Kuenzli was only "loping" down the hill.
Palmer estimated Kuenzli's speed at about 8 miles per hour, which is important in determining how quickly he might have charged at Fish.
McDonald also ridiculed prosecutors over a July 20 sound re-enactment of the shooting.
In the re-creation, deputies were able to hear voices from the shooting scene a half-mile away.
McDonald said weather conditions were far different in July than on the windy late afternoon of the shooting, rendering the results meaningless.
In presenting his arguments, McDonald included an affidavit from Tom House, Fish's martial-arts instructor at BYU and a retired prison warden. In presenting himself as a self-defense expert, House concluded that Fish's shooting of Kuenzli "was the only prudent action reasonably available" to Fish.
Not prudent action
However, House also stated that "firing a warning shot in the direction of the dogs was not a prudent course of action."
In addition to McDonald's latest motion, the former U.S. attorney for Arizona is seeking to obtain Kuenzli's mental health records.
He alleges that Kuenzli had shown a pattern of unstable and violent behavior.
Prosecutors are fighting to keep those records sealed on privacy grounds and because they say the documents are irrelevant.
That issue will also be on the table when oral arguments are presented next month.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or (602) 444-6862.original thread original threadhere
