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By KAREN ABBOTT and
JEFF KASS
Rocky Mountain News
January 16, 2004
Lawyers battled Thursday before the
Colorado Supreme Court over Lisl Auman's
life sentence for a murder committed by someone else while she sat handcuffed
in a patrol car.
Auman, who was 21 when Denver police
officer Bruce VanderJagt was shot to
death by Matthaeus Jaehnig on Nov. 12, 1997, was convicted and sentenced under
Colorado's "felony murder" law.
Jaehnig killed himself immediately
after shooting VanderJagt. Although she
didn't kill VanderJagt, Auman was convicted of first-degree murder because
she
allegedly arranged a burglary from which prosecutors say Jaehnig and Auman
were fleeing when he killed the officer.
"This is a harsh result,"
said Justice Gregory Hobbs on Thursday. "She gets
life imprisonment. She didn't commit the murder. She's not committing the
burglary, and she's no longer in flight at the time this occurred."
Assistant Colorado Attorney General
Paul Koehler, arguing for the prosecution
that Auman should stay in prison for life, agreed the penalty is harsh.
"Of course, it's a harsh rule,"
Koehler said. "It's intended to be a harsh
rule, to make people take adult responsibility for their actions in these
crimes."
Auman set events in motion that led
to VanderJagt's death, he said. Even
though someone else killed him, "the defendant is stuck," Koehler
said.
The felony murder law says a person
is guilty of first-degree murder if he or
she participates in, or is fleeing from, some other crime and a death
results, intended or not.
Auman had arranged for Jaehnig, whom
she had met that day, and others to help
her retrieve belongings from a mountain residence she had shared with a
boyfriend.
When someone called police during
that burglary, Jaehnig sped away with Auman
in a stolen car and led officers on a high-speed chase through three
counties. While Auman held the steering wheel, Jaehnig fired shots at pursuing
officers.
According to her lawyers, Auman didn't
know the car was stolen, didn't know
there were guns in it, didn't know Jaehnig was high on methamphetamines and
didn't know he was an unstable, dangerous person.
Prosecutors contend she did know
- or that she should have realized - the
clandestine retrieval of her belongings with the companions she had chosen
could
lead to tragic consequences.
The chase ended in Denver, where
Auman was arrested. Jaehnig fled the car on
foot and killed VanderJagt. Auman's lawyers contend her involvement in the
crimes and her flight from them ended when she was arrested.
"Her participation is over,"
said defense attorney Kathleen Lord. "This was
not at the burglary, so it wasn't in the course of the burglary. It wasn't
in
furtherance of the burglary. . . . She's not fleeing from any burglary.
"She's powerless to change anything that happens because she's handcuffed."
Hobbs suggested it might have made
a difference for Auman if she had tried to
disengage herself from Jaehnig during the chase, instead of helping to steer
the car while he fired at pursuing officers.
"What would you have her do,
jump out of the car at a hundred miles an hour?"
Lord asked.
Koehler said the only defense to
a felony murder charge is that a person was
totally ignorant of a co-participant's dangerous intentions or abilities and,
when discovering them, deliberately disengaged from involvement.
Auman's case has drawn national attention.
On Thursday, it also drew the
personal attention of certain spectators in the packed courtroom.
VanderJagt's widow, Anna, came from her home in New Mexico to attend.
Auman's mother and stepfather, sitting
in the front row, exchanged a quick
kiss just before the arguments began.
Auman's mother, Colleen Auerbach,
said afterward: "We couldn't tell which way
the judges were going. I don't think we feel any better today than we did
yesterday."
Auerbach said she is glad the Colorado
Supreme Court agreed to at least
review her daughter's case.
Auman's father and grandmother also attended the arguments.
"I thought there were good points
made on both sides," Don Auman said
afterward. "I don't think anybody could say we won or we lost."
But Auman's father expressed confidence
in Lord's arguments and said he is
trying to be positive "and hope that Lisl gets the break she deserves
this time."
He said his daughter is taking college
courses - including math, natural
sciences and sociology - while in prison and is doing as well as she can there.
Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman
sat in the third row of spectators, among
numerous other police officers present in the courtroom.
After the lawyers' arguments, Whitman
said he doesn't believe Auman's
liability ended when she was arrested.
"I think it's clear that this is a continuing criminal episode," Whitman said.
Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar,
who sat at a counsel table with
Koehler, said afterward that if Auman had not "planned and orchestrated"
the
clandestine retrieval of her belongings, no murder would have occurred.
Only five Colorado Supreme Court
justices are participating in the case.
Justice Nancy Rice is not involved because, before she was a justice, she
was the
judge who presided over Auman's trial. Justice Nathan Coats is not
participating because he worked in the Denver District Attorney's Office when
the
decision was made there to charge Auman with murder.
The justices took the case under
advisement. A decision is expected within
months.
abbottk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5188.
Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
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