Death penalty process works. Sir Mario Owens received a fair trial.
Twice-convicted murderer of three innocent members of our community, Sir Mario Owens, and his sizable, wellresourced, and expert team of lawyers were provided a virtually unlimited opportunity to challenge his convictions and sentences in the 2004 murder of Gregory Vann and the 2005 murders of Javad Marshall-fields (the eyewitness to the Gregory Vann murder) and his fiancé, Vivian Wolfe.
Owens was provided seven taxpayer-funded and well-experienced lawyers to represent him over the course of his two separate murder trials. After being convicted and sentenced to death by jurors picked by his lawyers, Owens was provided four teams totaling 15 separate taxpayer-funded lawyers to attack his convictions and death sentence. Yep, that’s 22 separate lawyers just for Owens.
Owens’ small army of lawyers raised every conceivable claim. The exhaustive and expansive hearings to address those claims began in November 2012, four years after Owens’ death sentence, and ended nearly four and a half years later, in April 2017. One hundred thirty witnesses testified.
Few convicted murderers — if any — in the history of Colorado have been provided more resources, attorneys, opportunity to challenge their convictions and due process than has been provided to Sir Mario Owens in these cases.
On Sept. 15, Judge Christopher Munch, the presiding judge on these matters — a judge with 30 years of experience on the bench — concluded: “Owens received a fair trial — one whose result is
reliable. He also received a fair sentencing hearing — one whose result was constitutionally obtained, justified in law, and is rationally based upon the evidence. Owens petition is … DENIED.”
The court carefully considered each and every claim made by Owens’ team of lawyers about alleged discovery violations. The court found that none of the alleged discovery violations, individually or cumulatively, “…involve(d) deliberate perjury and similarly serious ethical violations of a type that compromise the integrity of the court process” and that “…there is no government conduct which is shocking to the universal sense of justice.”
Judge Munch’s findings are consistent with rulings made by Judge Gerald Rafferty, the original judge who presided over the trial, who considered many of the same allegations and held:
“The argument is presented to me that their (the DA’S) pattern of discovery violations warrants a new trial, or at a minimum, a new sentencing hearing, and I find that it does not … I do not find this to be a pattern of deliberate discovery violations.”
In a separate ruling Judge Rafferty wrote: “Over the course of four years of complex litigation in this case, it is not surprising that there have been several instances where the prosecution has failed in its discovery obligations. However, this court cannot find that, taken together, those instances evidence a deliberate pattern by the prosecution team to deprive the defendant of his constitutional rights.”
Owens not only received a fair trial and a fair sentencing hearing by jurors selected by his lawyers, but also a fair review of the entire process, which lasted almost five years.
The Denver Post op-ed pages may be an appropriate place for those unhappy with a court’s ruling to level accusations unencumbered by the law and proven facts. The courtroom is the appropriate place to ensure that due process is provided, the law is followed and justice is rendered. Here, the law, the evidence, and the judges disagree with Owens’ lawyers. Justice has been — and will be — served.