Judge dismisses a lawyer in 1984 murder case

BRIGHAM CITY — Wade Garrett Maughan can keep only one of his current lawyers, a 1st District Court judge decided Wednesday.

Scott Williams won't belong to Maughan's defense team after Feb. 22. A new lead counsel will be appointed to work the case alongside Richard Mauro, who was arrested and briefly jailed in Spokane, Wash., on investigation of witness tampering in December.

Maughan is charged in 1st District Court with aggravated murder, a capital felony, and if he's convicted, he could receive the death penalty. The charge stems from the May 1984 slaying of Bradley Newell Perry, a night clerk at a gas station. Maughan was arrested in Spokane and charged in November.

Another defendant, Glenn Howard Griffin, was charged with the crime first, and according to testimony during a preliminary hearing in January, Griffin was the one who stabbed Perry with screwdrivers and bludgeoned him.

When Mauro and an investigator, Theodore Cilwick, went to Spokane in December to interview people to whom Maughan had reportedly confessed the killing, they told the witnesses they didn't have to talk to anybody about the case.

Mauro's attorney, Ken Brown, maintains that Mauro only meant the witnesses shouldn't talk to each other and possibly taint their upcoming testimonies. But Tom Stevenson, who is prosecuting Maughan, said the context of Mauro's advice to the witnesses included a reference to police detectives.

In his memorandum decision, issued more than an hour after court recessed so he had some time for deliberation, Judge Ben Hadfield said there is "at least a reasonable possibility that either a serious violation of law or ethical standards occurred" when Mauro told witnesses they didn't have to talk to anybody shortly before police arrived.

It was possibly a breach of ethics because Mauro isn't the attorney representing the witnesses.

"They can have their client take the Fifth (Amendment), but you can't say that to witnesses," Spokane police Sgt. Joe Patterson told The Associated Press shortly after the arrest.

Stevenson later filed a motion to disqualify Maughan's attorneys, and in Hadfield's decision on the motion the judge said he doesn't believe Mauro committed wrongdoing.

"On the contrary, this court's prior dealings with both defense counsel have all been positive," he said. "The court finds today only that there is a reasonable possibility that witness tampering occurred."