The proceedings for post-conviction relief for a man serving a 25-year prison term appear stalled until November, at the earliest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m stuck,\u201d lead prosecutor Jack Roth told the court this week.<\/p>\n
A Colorado Attorney General violent crimes prosecutor, Roth told the court via telephone on Wednesday that he hasn\u2019t received any file from previous defense counsel.<\/p>\n
Without objection, Chief District Court Judge Doug Walker set an Oct. 15 deadline for Roth to file a response to a defense motion that contends convicted killer Luther Hampson, 30, of Dolores, received ineffective legal counsel during initial trial proceedings.<\/p>\n
The defendant will have 15 days to reply to Roth\u2019s motion, meaning the case is stalled until the end of October.<\/p>\n
Hampson\u2019s new attorney, Brad Junge, of Grand Junction, filed the motion seeking post-conviction relief. According to court documents, Junge maintains that public defender Justin Bogan provided ineffective counsel.<\/p>\n
The case has been in limbo since April, after Bogan refused to turn over his case file due to attorney-client privilege.<\/p>\n
In custody at the Freemont Correctional Facility near Ca\u00f1on City, Hampson wasn\u2019t present at this week\u2019s hearing. His mother did attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuther is innocent,\u201d she told the Journal after Wednesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
To avoid a possible life sentence, Hampson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges in 2013 in connection to the beating death of 27-year-old Jonathan Hayes, of Dolores. Hikers reportedly found Hayes\u2019 body off County Road T on Jan. 14, 2012, a week after Hayes was last seen alive.<\/p>\n
Hayes sustained six blunt-force impacts to the face, and his throat was sliced with a razor blade. Medical records indicate he died a slow death. The murder weapon was never recovered.<\/p>\n
Sentenced to 25 years, Hampson will become eligible for parole in 2029. His estimated release date is 2036.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prosecutors lacks defense files<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[44,13,131,533],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-dolores","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-homicide","tag-prison"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109626"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}