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Provo • A judge says he's "98 percent" sure he will grant a new trial for an Orem man who is imprisoned for shooting his wife in the head in 2012.
Although 4th District Judge Samuel McVey didn't issue a ruling from the bench on Thursday, he told attorneys that he will likely give Conrad Mark Truman, 34, another trial due to incorrect measurements of his home that were presented to jurors during a 2014 trial.
Those jurors found Truman guilty of first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony obstruction of justice in 25-year-old Heidy Truman's death. Conrad Truman — who maintains his innocence and has said he believes his wife's death may have been suicide — is currently serving consecutive terms of 15 years to life and one to 15 years at the Utah State Prison.
His attorneys have asked the judge for a new trial based on claims that they have uncovered both new evidence and numerous errors on the part of police and prosecutors which support Conrad Truman's assertions of innocence.
Attorneys lugged boxes of evidence into the courtroom Thursday, anticipating to argue about a dozen issues that Truman's attorneys believe warrant a new trial.
But the judge centered on only one issue: The incorrect measurements of the Truman home that the jurors relied on when finding the husband guilty of holding a gun to his wife's head and pulling the trigger.
Where Heidy Truman was shot and how far she could have traveled after she was injured before collapsing near a stairwell, were contentious points at trial. The incorrect measurements, defense attorney Mark Moffat said Thursday, gave the impression that the home was much larger than it was. This could have led jurors to discredit Conrad Truman's testimony that his wife was shot in the hallway, because the measurements would have shown that Heidy Truman had to travel down a hallway that was two feet longer than it actually is before falling.
"This corrected information is absolutely pivotal that we think, on its own, warrants a new trial," Moffat argued. "… At the end of the day, this is the type of stuff the jury should have had access too."
Prosecutors conceded that the measurements done by the Orem Police Department were incorrect, but Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan Peters argued there was plenty of other evidence, including photos and digital walk-throughs of the home, that led the jury to convict. He called the measuring problem a harmless mistake, but the judge disagreed.
"This is not harmless error," McVey said.
The judge said that while his mind is all but made up, he will issue a written ruling in about two weeks declaring whether Conrad Truman will get a new trial.
Heidy Truman's mother, Janet Wagner, said her family was disappointed in the judge's likely ruling.
"We believe in the end the truth will still prevail," Wagner said. "We'll get justice for Heidy in the end."
Deputy Utah County Attorney Craig Johnson said prosecutors also were disappointed in the judge's decision, saying they "don't know" how the measurements came to be incorrct.
"We did not knowingly present false testimony," Johnson said. "… This came as a shock to us."
Moffat said outside of court that it appears as if whoever measured the home wrote the inches as feet, so a measurement of 139 inches became 13.9 feet — instead of just over 11.5 feet. He called the measurements "wildly misleading."
And if McVey ultimately decides that he won't grant a new trial, after all? Attorneys say they will come back to court for more arguments on the many other issues that are still on the table.
Among them are gunshot residue tests that were never presented to the jury and a changed decision from the Utah Medical Examiner's Office. The medical examiner, who previously ruled that Heidy Truman died as a result of a homicide, has since reclassified her manner of death as "undetermined" following a review of new information provided by the defense and corrections made to evidence relied on both before and during the trial.
"I can no longer state with medical or scientific certainty which individual fired the fatal shot," Edward Leis, a deputy medical examiner states in the affidavit included in court papers. "… I can no longer rule out the possibility that Heidy Truman died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound of the head."
Heidy Truman died on Sept. 20, 2012, at the couple's Orem home. Her husband was also home that night, but has said he was in the kitchen when he heard a noise and then turned to see his wife collapse.
Twitter: @jm_miller