From Deseret News archives:
Hatch sentencing delayed
He files motion — wants new trial and a public defender
She planned to deliver two presents — a majestic headstone she ordered from Brazil and news that her sister's killer, Robert Steven Hatch, had been sent to prison.
Half of Leek's plans were dashed Wednesday.
She still expects the stone, which will stand more than 5 feet tall, to arrive. It will bear the name Sharee Nelson.
Leek is working with a lawyer to legally remove "Hatch" from the end of her sister's name, something Sharee Nelson Hatch was in the process of doing when she was shot in the face by her estranged husband on July 7, 2002.
Robert Steven Hatch, however, will not be in prison next week. He remains at the Utah County Jail, having successfully won a delay in his sentencing on Wednesday. Leek, who hoped 4th District Judge Fred Howard would go forward with sentencing, was left in tears.
Hatch mailed a handwritten motion to Howard seeking a hearing in advance of sentencing, scheduled for Tuesday. The motion indicated that Hatch would seek a new trial and asked the judge to appoint a public defender.
The possibility of a new trial — the first lasted five weeks — angered Leek.
"I'm sick and tired of him coming up with excuses to put it off," Leek said. "He keeps looking for new ways to make us suffer. It's like Sharee has no rights even though he showed her none when she screamed and he shot her. There are no rights for us, either; we're still suffering."
Howard granted Hatch's motion to remove his attorneys, Gregory Skordas and Jack Morgan, because Hatch said they were ineffective at trial. The judge appointed the Utah County Public Defenders Association to represent Hatch. However, the association's executive director, Tom Means, said his office has a conflict of interest with Hatch and will have to assign the case to a different attorney.
Howard asked all the parties to return on Tuesday — at the same time Hatch was supposed to be sentenced — to schedule a new time for sentencing.
A jury convicted Hatch in November of breaking into the Spanish Fork home he used to share with Sharee Nelson and shooting her in the face with a shotgun while her live-in boyfriend hid in a walk-in closet.
Hatch said Wednesday he has no money to pay an attorney, nor any property except an old pickup truck. The home was lost while he was in jail.
"It was repossessed about three months into this," Hatch told the judge.
Howard, who has rotated from the 4th District's criminal division to its civil division, indicated he would continue to oversee this criminal case.
