Friday, January 20, 2006

ONGOING COVERAGE: GROENE INVESTIGATION

Duncan visitors include doctors, psychologists

Document View Duncan's jail visitor logs (PDF).

Taryn Brodwater
Staff writer
January 20, 2006

Joseph Edward Duncan has been visited 240 times since he was booked into the Kootenai County Jail six months ago, but apparently not a single family member has come to see the accused killer, according to jail visitor logs.

Duncan's most frequent visitors are the attorneys who represent him in the triple-murder trial set for April 4. Public Defender John Adams and others from his staff have met with Duncan almost daily.

Federal public defenders, psychologists, doctors, private investigators and a local pastor also have spent time with Duncan at the jail. The visitor's log reveals who some of the defense team's expert witnesses may be, though. Some of Duncan's visitors have served as defense witnesses in many high-profile criminal cases.

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Adams couldn't be reached Thursday afternoon for comment on the visitor logs, which The Spokesman-Review obtained through a records request.

Joyce Naffziger, a private investigator who has seen Duncan six times, testified in the 1999 trial of Kip Kinkel, the Oregon teen convicted of killing his parents and two fellow students. Naffziger testified that she had found many instances of mental illness in Kinkel's extended family and that four first cousins on his mother's side of the family had been institutionalized, the Associated Press reported at this time.

Kinkel was sentenced to 111 years in prison for the 1998 shootings, which also injured 25 students.

Naffziger was called to the stand following testimony from a neurologist that Kinkel had signs of mental illness and from a child psychologist who said the teen was a paranoid schizophrenic.

In a motion filed earlier this week, Adams said Duncan's mental state should be taken into consideration. He is asking the court to declare the state's 1982 repeal of the insanity defense unconstitutional.

Craig Beaver, a neuropsychologist from southern Idaho, also is listed on Duncan's visitor logs. Beaver has served as an expert witness in many criminal cases, including some in Kootenai County.

He testified at the sentencing hearing of Stephen A. Cherry, convicted in 1997 of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend in front of her Hauser Lake home and wounding her boyfriend. Beaver said Cherry hadn't accepted responsibility for the crime and suffered from "severe borderline personality disorder."

He testified in 2000 that Henry Luke, accused of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman, had the reading and writing ability of a second-grade student and an IQ so low that he was considered "borderline" retarded.

Beaver also testified that he believed Luke's confession didn't appear to be a true confession.

Last fall he testified that Marianne Dahle, a Caldwell, Idaho, woman accused of scalping a 15-year-old girl, suffered from bipolar disorder. He said that the condition was worsened at the time of the crime because Dahle was off her medication and using drugs and alcohol, the AP reported.

Judith V. Becker, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, also visited Duncan. According to information on the University of Arizona's Web site, Becker has worked with sexual assault victims and abusers.

None of Duncan's visitors could be reached Thursday except for Coeur d'Alene pastor Tim Remington, who went to see Duncan 14 times since Aug. 3. He visited Duncan twice daily on two different occasions.

Remington said he was asked by the public defender's office to visit Duncan, but he declined to comment on his conversations with Duncan.

In September 2002, Adams fought for Remington to be allowed to visit Kelly Ann Nakaji, a woman who was later convicted of smothering her 4-month-old baby.

Jail officials wouldn't allow Remington, who runs alcohol and drug treatment programs at the jail, to meet with Nakaji face to face, citing security reasons. Sheriff Rocky Watson said at the time he feared allowing Remington to visit with high-security prisoners would set a precedent.

Watson said that members of the clergy would have to train with officers and the sheriff's chaplain before being allowed to meet with high-security inmates.

Remington said Thursday he is not a chaplain at the jail.

According to court papers filed earlier this week, Duncan had met with Sheriff's Chaplain Robert Smalley soon after he was arrested and charged in the May 2005 murders of Brenda Groene, her son, Slade, and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie.

Adams has asked the court to suppress statements Duncan allegedly made during a conversation with Smalley. Adams said in court papers that Smalley had written a report on his visit with Duncan and forwarded the report to prosecutors.

A hearing has yet to be scheduled on that and other pre-trial motions Adams and Prosecutor Bill Douglas filed in the case. Adams asked earlier this week that a jury be brought in from outside Kootenai County for the trial.