jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM -- The state hasn't done anything that warrants putting off the trial for first-degree murder defendant Keith Wade Kidwell, Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson said on Wednesday.
Throughout this trial, defense lawyer Lisa Williams has insisted that District Attorney Tracey Cline is withholding information that is critical to Kidwell's case. Williams on Tuesday asked Hudson to declare a mistrial. But the judge said no.
Kidwell, 25, is charged with killing Kangaroo convenience-store clerk Crayton Nelms in February 2005. Nelms, who was 44, worked the overnight shift at the Kangaroo store at 4604 N. Roxboro St.
Among Williams' issues was a meeting she said Cline had with Durham Police Department Sgt. Brett Hallan, who took the witness stand without the defense lawyer being privy to the notes from their session. That sort of thing stands to prejudice Kidwell's trial, Williams said.
Williams said she does all she can to prepare a proper defense for her client. Of course, Williams said, there is the information Cline hands over at the last minute, and she's expected to work with that.
Cline said there's no pleasing Williams.
"The state has continually been trying to comply with discovery," Cline said. "She's never satisfied."
Discovery is the state's information and evidence related to a defendant's case that is to be shared with the accused and his or her legal team prior to trial. But Cline said it's not the state's responsibility to produce for the defendant exculpatory evidence.
"The bottom line is we need to try this case," Cline said.
The judge said he wants to do that. But all of these stops and starts in the name of missing information keep him from moving on, he said.
Hudson wondered when Williams and Cline would stop all of the back-and-forth so he can get on with what he's paid to do -- try cases.
On the witness stand Wednesday was Billy Gatlin, a former detention officer at the jail in Oklahoma where Kidwell was incarcerated after being stopped for speeding by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper. Kidwell was driving the pickup truck that belonged to the victim, said Cline, who had a witness on the stand look through documents that corroborated Nelms as the owner of the Ford F-150 that was stolen from the crime scene.
At the jail in Oklahoma, Kidwell tried to escape through a ceiling hatch in the shower room, Cline said. Gatlin testified about responding to the shower room where other detention officers were restraining Kidwell. Sharp, metal objects were found in Kidwell's jail cell, Gatlin said.
Williams spent much of Wednesday afternoon objecting to Cline's evidence-related questions to one of the Oklahoma troopers involved in Kidwell's case. And the judge spent much of the afternoon overruling Williams' objections.
Another witness from Oklahoma wanted to put on his eyeglasses so he could more easily read a document, and Williams, playfully, even objected to that. The jurors were tickled.
