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SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Attorney General's Office has petitioned the nation's highest court to uphold the sentence of a convicted murderer sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The A.G.'s office filed a writ of certiorari petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Mark Anthony Ott.
On Sept. 1, 2002, Ott broke into his estranged wife's home, stabbed her boyfriend 23 times and then stabbed her teenage daughter when she tried to intervene. Ott then doused the house with gasoline and set it on fire.
Ott's estranged wife, her boyfriend and her daughter were able to get out of the house and survived. But the boyfriend's 6-year-old daughter, Lacey Paige Lawrence, died from smoke inhalation.
Ott pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and several other felonies in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table.
During the five-day sentencing hearing, some of the surviving victims testified that they believed Ott was remorseless and they feared for their safety should he ever get out of prison. He was sentenced to life without parole.
Defense attorneys argued to the Utah Supreme Court that because the victims spoke to the defendant's character, spoke about the circumstances of the crime and told the jury what they believed an appropriate sentence should be, they were in violation of the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Booth vs. Maryland.
The state's high court agreed in January 2010 and ordered Ott to be resentenced. He remains in prison while attorneys dispute the next step.
According to the Booth ruling, in a death penalty case, victims cannot testify to those three points, even though the defendant's family can. In any other case, victims can speak to a defendant's character.
We believe the Utah high court was wrong in reversing the jury's sentence of life without parole. We are therefore seeking justice from the U.S. Supreme Court for the victims of this brutal crime.
–Mark Shurtleff, Utah AG
#shurtleff_q
"Booth should be overruled. It's not fair to let a defendant put on the same kind of evidence, especially in a case (the victims) were there," said assistant attorney general Laura Dupaix. "It's a fairness issue. If defendants can put this testimony on, victims ought to be able to say it as well."
In addition to a fairness issue, Dupaix said because the death penalty was taken off the table, the Booth decision should not have an impact on the Ott case because it wasn't a death penalty case.
Furthermore, she argued that the victims who testified during sentencing were actually present when the murder was committed and did not get their information about the crime from hearsay.
"Victims who were there should be allowed to talk about what happened that night," Dupaix said. The National Crime Victims Institute filed a friend of the court brief along with the petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the state's appeal.
"We believe the Utah high court was wrong in reversing the jury's sentence of life without parole," Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said. "We are therefore seeking justice from the U.S. Supreme Court for the victims of this brutal crime."
Dupiax admitted petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court are a long shot, but said, "We think we have a good question."
If the petition fails, Dupiax said the victims' testimony was only a small part of the sentencing hearing and the attorney general's office will be able to hold the resentencing again with most of the same evidence as before.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com
