Death row inmate Briley Piper won't be re-sentenced

By Carson Walker, Associated Press Writer | Thursday, February 21, 2008

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

SIOUX FALLS -- A judge has denied death row inmate Briley Piper's request for re-sentencing because a judge -- not a jury -- sentenced him to die for the 2000 torture slaying of a Spearfish man, according to a ruling filed Wednesday.

After Piper, 27, of Anchorage, Alaska, and Elijah Page pleaded guilty to murdering Chester Allan Poage, Circuit Judge Warren Johnson sentenced them to death by lethal injection. A third man, Darrel Hoadley of Lead, pleaded not guilty, was convicted at a trial and sentenced to life in prison.

The three beat and tortured Poage, 19, for several hours March 13, 2000, before killing him by throwing large rocks on his head. Poage's body was found April 22, 2000, in Higgins Gulch west of Spearfish.

Page, 25, of Athens, Texas, voluntarily ended his appeals and was put to death July 12, the first execution in the state in 60 years.

Piper, one of three men on South Dakota's death row, argued that he should be allowed to have a jury sentence him in the hope he would get life in prison to replace the death sentence.

But in an order filed in Lawrence County court in Deadwood, Judge John Bastian denied the request, concluding that Piper knew what he was doing.

"The applicant and his attorneys had determined that a guilty plea and a sentence by the trial court judge offered the best possibility for a life sentence. Upon a totality of the circumstances, the applicant's decisions were voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made and his waiver of a constitutional right has been positively established," Bastian wrote.

One of Piper's lawyers, Steve Miller, said Wednesday he likely will be allowed to appeal the sentence to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

"If they say yes, we can appeal. If they say, no, we have to reassess our options," he said.

Lawrence County State's Attorney John Fitzgerald said a new execution date likely will be scheduled but would be stayed if the case is appealed further. Once all state appeals are exhausted, there are several federal layers available, he said.

"The unfortunate thing about these things is they drag out so long that society forgets about the victim and focuses on the defendant and all of the procedure, that we give these people super due process of law and it just takes an incredible amount of time to have some finality," Fitzgerald said.

"I'm not demeaning anybody or saying anything negative about how long these things take. Just a general observation that these take a long period of time."

The two other men awaiting capital punishment in South Dakota are Donald Moeller, for the 1990 rape and murder of Becky O'Connell, 9, in Sioux Falls, and Charles Russell Rhines, for the 1992 killing of doughnut shop worker Donnivan Schaeffer in Rapid City. Their cases also are on appeal.