Trial of local man accused of murder pushed back to August
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DRIGGS — The trial for the murder of a Driggs woman, Jennifer Nalley, and her unborn child has been moved from January to early August, 2017.
The trial of Erik M. Ohlson, 39, of Jackson, who is charged with two counts of first degree murder, is now scheduled to be heard in the Teton County District Court from July 31st to Aug. 18th.
“We could probably start something a lot sooner than August,” said Teton County Prosecutor Kathy Spitzer. “But at the same time with death penalties, there’s going to be appeals, there’s going to be attacks on every little move that is made and every little decision… if you do something too soon, you can ruin the whole trial.”
“You want to try it once and try it right as opposed to 20 years later having someone come back and re-try the case—that doesn’t help anyone,” said Deputy Prosecutor Chris Lundberg.
Death penalty cases have several additional procedural requirements attached to them, given the severity of the sentence.
One of the reasons stated for delaying the case was the fact that the both prosecution and the defense are waiting on information and reports necessary for fulfilling these additional requirements.
“We are waiting on information critical to our investigation,” said Ohlson’s defense attorney, Jim Archibald.
Archibald mentioned 13 separate items, including an autopsy report.
“Because natal homicide is a hot button issue nation wide, we have to have another doctor review the autopsy,” he said. “The sooner we get the report the sooner we can get it reviewed.”
Because the defense is planning to move to suppress some evidence and dismiss one of the murder counts, the case will continue prior to the trial. Both of those motions are scheduled for Jan. 20.
Archibald said he was working to have a police interview, in which Ohlson confessed to shooting the victim, suppressed.
“He asserted his right to an attorney twice,” said Archibald. “We’re waiting for the phone dumps and computer dumps to make sure there are no other statements we need to include on that. We think we have all the statements from law enforcement, The police have had Erik’s phone the whole time. We just got it this week.”
Archibald also said he was moving to have the count of first degree murder of Nalley’s unborn child dismissed, on the grounds that the Idaho statute has never been tested against other legal definitions of personhood, including especially the US Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.
“Idaho respects Roe v. Wade,” he said.
County prosecutors intend to challenge both of these motions.
“Our position is very firmly that both counts are warranted and nothing should be dismissed,” said Lundberg, declining to say more.
“We won’t be arguing our points in the media,” he said.
This article was originally published in the Teton Valley News. It is used here with permission.