Accused cop killer withdraws motion to be moved out of Utah County Jail

SPANISH FORK — Attorneys for the man accused of killing a Santaquin police officer have withdrawn their motion seeking to have their client moved out of the Utah County Jail.

The Utah County Attorney's Office says the move by defense attorneys for Michael Aaron Jayne "demonstrates there was no basis" for the motion to be filed.

Jayne's attorneys, however, say "a similar and/or revised motion will be filed in the near future," according to court documents. "The issues raised in the motion remain extremely important to Mr. Jayne. (He) and his three attorneys are dialoguing about which procedures and/or remedies would best address Mr. Jayne's circumstances, both in terms of current relief and also preserving the issues for appeal."

Jayne, 43, of Garrett, Indiana, is charged with nine felonies, including aggravated murder, and faces a possible death sentence if convicted for allegedly killing Santaquin Police Sgt. Bill Hooser on May 5, 2024. Jayne is accused of intentionally hitting Hooser with the semitruck he was driving.

In August, he was charged again in the 4th District Court with aggravated assault by a prisoner, a second-degree felony; two counts of assault by a prisoner, a third-degree felony; and causing property damage, a class A misdemeanor, for allegedly attacking multiple deputies at the Utah County Jail.

Last week, his defense team filed a motion that stated they are "gravely concerned" that if their client isn't moved out of the Utah County Jail, he may not live to see a trial.

"Unless somebody does something, Mr. Jayne is going to die before making it to trial in either of the cases now before this court, because recent events suggest that if the current trajectory continues unaltered then the distinct possibility exists that employees of the Utah County Jail will successfully engineer Mr. Jayne's premature demise," Michael Jayne's co-counsel, J.G. Askar, wrote in a motion filed last week in 4th District Court.

The motion requested that 4th District Judge Thomas Low allow Jayne to be taken into federal custody by the U.S. Marshals Service. Jayne's defense team says there is still an active no-bond federal warrant out in Texas for Jayne's arrest for violating the conditions of his release following a conviction in that state.

"With all due respect to the language that we attorneys typically employ in preparing written motions for the court, I must (at least temporarily) deviate from the norm because I do not know how to use legalese to fully convey the urgency that the instant pleading needs to relay," the motion states. "Some employees at the Utah County Jail – behaving as if they're compelled by a mistaken belief that Mr. Jayne is a cold-blooded 'cop killer' — are systematically sabotaging (his) constitutional rights, physical health and mental well-being.

"Out of an abundance of caution, and to ensure that Mr. Jayne survives long enough to take his two cases to trial, I ask that you seriously consider applying an elegantly simple solution to a situation that has begun to spiral out of control."

According to charging documents, on July 30, two Utah County sheriff's deputies were questioning Jayne about contraband found in his jail cell.

"During the interview, (Jayne) became increasingly hostile and combative. When the deputies told him he would be moved to a more secure and restricted area of the jail, (Jayne) got to his feet, pushed the table toward the deputies, got in a fighting stance and said, 'You'll have to (expletive) make me go to Can One,'" the charges state.

As the deputies attempted to place handcuffs on Jayne, he threw punches at both men. After the deputies were able to pin Jayne against a wall, he yelled, "I will (expletive) kill you" and then "clawed" at one deputy's face until he was able to dig a finger into the deputy's eye socket "and curled his finger in an attempt to remove (the deputy's) eyeball," according to the charges.

Jayne's attorneys contend in their motion that Jayne was calling one of his co-counsels at the time, a call that "was ostensibly protected by attorney-client privilege from recording or eavesdropping." Jayne allegedly admitted to his attorney that he "had printed out monochromatic pornographic images and placed those images in secured envelopes marked "legal files (privileged)."

But within an hour of giving his attorneys that information, deputies "were swarming" his cell and the events "escalated," according to the motion.

"Since that time, some jail employees have increasingly impeded Mr. Jayne's right to counsel and/or legal research: he had his electronic tablet taken away, he can no longer conduct legal research at the law library, and on numerous occasions he has been banned from using the phone to contact his attorneys," the motion states.

In a footnote to the motion, his attorneys state that "Mr. Jayne has written extensively in his legal files about strategies for the defense of his capital case … and all of those writings were enclosed in the legal files that jail employees videotaped. Suffice it to say, nobody will ever be able to assuage Mr. Jayne's steadfast belief that jail employees shared the recordings of legal files with the Utah County Attorney's Office. Defense counsel is concerned that the alleged assaults … may have been the result of coordinated entrapment."

The motion also states that Jayne was diagnosed with cancer last year and had his thyroid removed, but the jail has not allowed him proper follow-up care.

"Mr. Jayne is physically unwell. Indeed, the longer that the Utah County Jail neglects Mr. Jayne's physical care, the more likely it becomes that Mr. Jayne will fall prey to a cancer which would've otherwise been treatable," according to the motion.

In addition to his physical challenges, "the Utah County Jail is brutalizing Mr. Jayne's mental health," his attorneys claim. "(He) is housed in deplorable conditions – period, full stop.

"Michael Jayne spends every single day enduring mind-numbingly cruel living conditions."

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