Murder is easy to understand. But premeditated murder? Prosecutors say premeditation can be difficult.
It can especially be confusing since Kansas law doesn’t specify exactly how long someone has to think an action over before it becomes premeditation. It can’t be an instant before, but courts say you don’t have to think it over long.
Ann Swegle, deputy district attorney for Sedgwick County gave the best description of premeditation I’ve heard in her closing arguments of the Reginald Johnson murder trial.
“We premeditate all the time in our lives – we just don’t call it that,” Swegle told the jury. “We plan what we’re going to wear to work. We plan what we’re going to eat, at some point, before we eat. This morning, I decided I wanted another cup of coffee. It didn’t take me long. I just walked over to the coffee pot.”
The jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder – premeditated.
The man with the most convictions for child sexual assaults in Kansas will get a new trial because the prosecutor chose to repeatedly point to the man’s homosexuality at trial.
The Kansas Court of Appeals overturned a 78-count conviction against William James Blomquist (pictured left), citing the Anderson County Attorney Fred Campbell with “gross and flagrant misconduct” in repeatedly bringing up homosexuality, because that had nothing to do with the charges against him.
The court ruled “it was unreasonable for the State to assume that a sexual desire for children is among those desires which define a homosexual orientation.”
In other words, straight men can, and do, molest boys. Calling attention to sexual orientation served no purpose but to inflame emotions and prejudice the jury, the court said in its ruling.
Blomquist, 34, will get a new trial on charges of molesting and sodomizing a 12-year-old, mentally retarded boy.
Prosecutors sometimes have trouble locating witnesses for a murder trial. But Elizabeth Munos not only showed up to testify in the trial of Eric Martinez, she did so just days after giving birth.
Munos had a baby on Saturday and took the stand on Tuesday to say that Martinez fired the shots that killed his uncle David Martinez and wounded his cousin Adrian Martinez last summer.
“We’ll try to make this quick, so you can get back to that baby,” prosecutor Shannon Wilson said as she began her questioning.
Update: Wilson later said that Munos’ labor went so quick, she ended up giving birth in the restroom at Via Christi Medical Center/St. Joseph’s campus. Father Angel Martinez helped deliver the couple’s fourth baby.
