Federal judge stays state death prosecution of Dale Eaton
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CHEYENNE (AP) — A federal judge has handed the state of Wyoming another setback in its effort to execute a man convicted of killing a Montana woman nearly 30 years ago.
U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson, of Cheyenne, has barred the state from proceeding with a new death penalty sentencing hearing in state court against Dale Wayne Eaton.
Johnson’s order Monday blocks the state from further action until a federal appeals court in Denver rules on Eaton’s pending claims, including that too many years have passed for him to get a fair death penalty hearing.
Eaton had been the only person on death row in Wyoming for years before Johnson overturned his original death sentence last year.
He was sentenced to die for the 1988 killing of Lisa Kimmell, of Billings, who disappeared while driving across Wyoming. Fishermen found her body in the North Platte River.
The investigation stalled until 2002, when DNA evidence linked Eaton to the case while he was in prison on unrelated charges. Investigators then unearthed Kimmell’s missing car on Eaton’s property.
Authorities said Eaton kept Kimmell captive in a rundown compound in Moneta, west of Casper, and raped and killed her.
The Wyoming Supreme Court upheld Eaton’s death sentence.
The team of lawyers representing Eaton in his federal appeals don’t dispute that he killed Kimmell. However, in a ruling last year overturning Eaton’s death sentence, Johnson ruled that Wyoming public defenders failed to present sufficient detail to the jury about Eaton’s personal history and background during the penalty phase of his trial.
Johnson ruled last year that state prosecutors could ask another jury to sentence Eaton to death or keep him in prison for life. But Johnson stated that if the state wanted to seek the death penalty again, it needed to appoint new lawyers for Eaton within 120 days who were not associated with the Wyoming public defender’s office.
Casper District Attorney Mike Blonigen, who originally prosecuted Eaton, filed notice early this year that he intended once again to seek the death penalty. An attempt to reach Blonigen after business hours on Tuesday was unsuccessful.
Johnson ruled this summer that the state failed to follow his order promptly to appoint lawyers not associated with the public defender’s office for Eaton.
Cheyenne lawyer Terry Harris, who is on the team representing Eaton in the state and federal proceedings, declined to comment Tuesday.
The Wyoming attorney general’s office is representing the state in seeking to uphold Eaton’s death sentence. An attempt to reach Attorney General Peter Michael after business hours Tuesday was not immediately successful.
Harris also was on the legal team that represented another Wyoming inmate who succeeded in overturning his death sentence in 2009.
James Harlow had been sentenced to death in the stabbing death of a correctional officer at the state penitentiary in Rawlins. Harris and other lawyers argued in Harlow’s case that the state public defender’s office did an inadequate job and failed to put up enough money to investigate Harlow’s case and background.
Wyoming last carried out the death penalty in 1992, when it executed convicted murderer Mark Hopkinson. Several other death sentences have been overturned on appeal since then.
