Racist Utah Killer Denied Attorney Because of Past Threats
The Utah State Supreme Court has taken what it describes as a “drastic measure” in forfeiting a convicted racist killer’s right to an attorney for a pending appeal.
Curtis Michael Allgier has forfeited his right to an attorney — paid for by taxpayers — because he “has repeatedly engaged in extreme dilatory, disruptive and threatening conduct,” the state’s highest court said in an 8-page ruling on Friday. Specifically, Allgier threatened the lives of his court-appointed defense attorneys, even mailing a letter to the home of one of them, the ruling said.
Forfeiture of the constitutional right to a court-appointed defense attorney “is a drastic measure,” the state high court ruling said, and a “defendant must engage in extreme conduct” before it may be imposed. “We conclude that making threats to the welfare of appointed counsel may constitute extreme conduct justifying a forfeiture of counsel,” the ruling said.
Allgier faced a possible death penalty for the 2007 shooting death of Utah corrections officer Stephen Anderson, who was killed with his own service revolver as he escorted Allgier to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City. But in a plea deal, prosecutors removed the death penalty in exchange for Allgier’s pleas in 2012 to charges of aggravated murder, disarming a peace officer, aggravated escape, aggravated robbery and possession of a dangerous weapon.
A judge sentenced Allgier to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Almost immediately, he appealed, arguing he had ineffective assistance of counsel.
Allgier — whose body is covered with neo-Nazi and white supremacist tattoos — was given a court-appointed attorney from the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association for the appeal. But shortly thereafter that attorney filed a motion to withdraw because of an “irreparable breakdown in attorney-client relationship,” the Supreme Court ruling said.
To bolster his request to withdraw, the defense attorney said Allgier had filed a bar complaint against him and threatened “it [would] get very ugly” if the attorney didn’t bow out. Allgier’s bar complaint said he was “trying to be nice, but [would] resort to other means of removal” if the defense attorney wasn’t removed.
“He don’t [sic] want to learn how much I don’t give a damn,’’ Allgier said in the complaint.
Once that attorney was released, two new court-appointed attorneys were named to represent Allgier, but within a few weeks he filed his own motion demanding their removal, too. The convicted killer said he “refuse[d] these quacks forced upon [him]” and asked for another defense attorney appointed by a different judge.
The court denied that motion, but that didn’t stop Allgier from filing three more pro se motions, demanding removal of the two new defense attorneys without providing adequate documentation to support his claims, the Supreme Court justices said.
Allgier said his court-appointed attorneys “are the dumbest ass clowns I’ve ever had the EXTREME dishonorable displeasure of being forced to know.” He called them incompetent and ineffective and said “NEVER will they have the honor of being in my Aryan GOD presence or having any kind of contact with me, period!”
When those new attorneys attempted to withdraw from representing Allgier, the issue was appealed to the Utah State Supreme Court. The attorneys said as part of the “irreparable breakdown in attorney-client communication,” Allgier had removed the attorneys from his visiting list and refused delivery of their correspondence. Their motion also said Allgier has “leveled threats against counsel,” including statements that he “knows how to find people outside of prison” and has mailed documents to the home address of one of his new attorneys, an address that wasn’t provided to the inmate.
Court-appointed defense attorneys “perform an indispensable service to the administration of the criminal justice system,” the Supreme Court ruling said. Some defendants “may be very difficult to work with and unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions” and others “may mistakenly assume that they are entitled to the appointed counsel of their choosing,” the ruling said.
“This is work that warrants gratitude from a client, yet it is work that actually may receive less gratitude, and doing it may require an exceptionally thick skin,” the court said. Even so, “appointed defense attorneys should not be required to fear for their own safety or that of their professional associates or families.”
