An attorney for one of the men convicted in the brutal 2009 murder of retired Brigham Young University professor Kay Mortensen has asked the Utah Supreme Court to overturn his conviction and order a new trial.
Attorney Jennifer Gowans Vandenberg told justices that a prosecutor sneaked in evidence into the trial of Martin Cameron Bond through questions to the other man convicted in the murder.
Bond was found guilty in 2013 of aggravated murder, kidnapping, burglary and robbery and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Bond's accomplice, Benjamin David Retting, confessed and is serving a 25 years to life sentence.
Rettig and Bond of Vernal broke into Mortensen's Payson Canyon home the night of Nov. 16, 2009, to steal his extensive weapons collection. During the burglary, Rettig trained a handgun on Mortensen as Bond retrieved a knife that he then used to slash the 70-year-old man's throat, evidence at the trial showed.
Vandenberg told the court that Bond's right to cross-examine witnesses was denied him when a Utah County prosecutor asked Retting a series of leading questions about Bond's role in the killings. Retting refused to answer but the prosecutor used his questions to try showing that Bond was the leader of the two during the crime and not Retting as Bond claimed, Vandenberg argued.
"If you take it in context of all the leading questions the prosecutor asked, the whole purpose of that line of questioning was to show Bond was in charge," she said.
But Assistant Utah Attorney General John Nielsen argued that there was a great deal of other evidence that showed that Bond had planned and led the robbery and carried out the murder.
"The balance of the evidence showed Mr. Bond was the mastermind," he said.
The justices took the case under advisement after the arguments on Tuesday.
tharvey@sltrib.com
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