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St. George • Lawyers for a southern Utah man facing a possible death penalty sentence are planning to depose all of Utah's 29 county prosecutors in an effort to show capital punishment is unconstitutional.
The Spectrum of St. George reports that attorneys for 34-year-old Brandon Perry Smith said Wednesday that the testimony from the state's prosecutors will help them show the death penalty is unfairly applied.
Attorneys Gary Pendleton and Mary Corporon say that prosecutors seek the death penalty in less than 3 percent of eligible cases, resolving most with a life prison sentence.
Fifth District Judge G. Michael Westfall said he doesn't want to further slow the progress of the case. A new hearing was set for Feb. 3.
Smith is accused of cutting 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen's throat at a St. George townhome in December 2010.
Prosecutors have alleged that several aggravating factors make the killing a death-penalty case: that Christensen was killed during a criminal episode in which two or more people were killed, that the homicide was committed incident to attempted kidnapping, that Christensen was killed to prevent her from testifying and that the homicide was committed in an "especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or exceptionally depraved manner."
Smith allegedly killed Christensen after his friend, Paul Clifford Ashton, had shot and killed 27-year-old Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden, and shot and wounded James Fiske, 28.
Ashton, 36, is serving life without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in 2013 to the townhome shootings,
Also in 2013, Ashston was sentenced in federal court to life in prison plus 10 years for an unrelated 2010 murder, where he admitted to aiding in the death of Bradley Eitner, 43. Ashton serving his sentence in federal prison.