Aug. 18—GRAND FORKS — A Grand Forks man will stand trial for murder Tuesday, Aug. 19.
Donald Joseph "DJ" Bartlette, 46, faces up to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if found guilty of Class AA felony murder.
Bartlette was
charged last October,
days after 49-year-old Anthony "Tony" James Kiehl was found unresponsive in his apartment. An affidavit filed in the case said Kiehl sustained multiple injuries to his head and face and wasn't breathing. He was pronounced dead at Altru Hospital.
Some of the information that linked Bartlette to the death, according to court documents, included surveillance footage of the apartment building that showed him entering and exiting Kiehl's residence earlier that evening, as well as a witness statement that Bartlette said he'd gotten into a fight with Kiehl.
Bartlette appeared in court Monday morning, Aug. 18, for a status conference, where a few matters were addressed.
Samuel Gereszek, Bartlette's attorney, filed a motion that was approved in part during the hearing. Judge Jason McCarthy agreed with the first request of the motion, which was that Bartlette wear street clothes and non-visible restraints during his trial. This is common for a jury trial, because wearing a jail uniform and visible shackles could affect the jury's ability to see a defendant as innocent until proven guilty.
The second part of the motion was a request to exclude all jail video calls the prosecution plans to play during the trial, because of that same risk of prejudice when seeing a defendant in a jail uniform and inside a correctional facility.
Rachel Egstad, an attorney for the prosecution, said the calls will contradict other statements Bartlette made about what happened the night of the alleged murder; they will be important in allowing the jury to determine his credibility.
She also said video showing a defendant in jail clothing has been found not to have as strong of a prejudicial effect and, in this case, she believes the value of the videos as evidence is stronger than any potential prejudice.
In an earlier hearing,
Gereszek argued the timeline of the alleged murder didn't make sense,
and it was likely that someone else committed the crime after his client left following a fight with Kiehl, in which Bartlette claims to have acted in self-defense.
Egstad said the video footage will show Bartlette making statements that no one else was there at the time.
Another man, Nicholas Alexander Wride-Arnold, has been formally accused of involvement in Kiehl's death. Specifically, he has been charged with Class AA felony conspiracy to commit murder,
though it was said in a previous hearing that his charge may be reduced to a lesser offense.
Court documents say Wride-Arnold also went into Kiehl's apartment that night, and video footage showed him in the hallway afterward, vigorously cleaning himself and Bartlette with a towel.
Wride-Arnold has been served a subpoena to testify during Bartlette's trial. He maintains his innocence and is scheduled for a final dispositional conference Thursday, Aug. 21.
McCarthy questioned whether the audio of Bartlette's jail calls could be played without the video clips from the calls, and decided he would make a ruling after he has that information.
Egstad said she believed Bartlette's body language and other visuals are relevant.
Jury selection is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday. From a pool of 64 potential jurors, a jury of 12 — plus two alternates — will be selected. The hope is to get jury selection finished by the noon hour, so the trial itself can begin after a lunch break, McCarthy said.
Megan Essig, a prosecutor in the case, said she was hopeful trial would be finished by the end of the week, but said it may go into the next week.
The prosecution's witness and exhibit lists were not publicly filed as of early afternoon Monday, but various subpoenas were available. They include multiple law enforcement personnel, as well as a doctor, dispatcher, a member of hospital staff, a member of jail staff, someone from North Dakota Parole & Probation, members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Wride-Arnold and two of Bartlette's family members.
Gereszek stipulated to most of the evidence the prosecution plans to present at trial, which means he doesn't plan on objecting to it. He did object to some photographs, saying they were essentially duplicates of each other and asking that only one of each relevant photo be allowed. McCarthy noted slight differences in the photos and overruled the objection for the time being.
Gereszek also requested that some clips be cut out the in-car video taken when Bartlette was arrested, because of additional concerns about prejudice. He said some of Bartlette's statements reveal he is familiar with the local jail. If jurors are aware he has spent time in jail before, they could make assumptions about his guilt.
Essig said a statement made by Bartlette about not wanting to return to prison had already been removed from the footage for that very reason, and said she believed other statements were relevant evidence. She said Bartlette spoke in the video about wanting to go to sleep, which is relevant because he is alleged to have evaded law enforcement all night after Kiehl was found.
The objection was overruled.
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