Mennonite investigator sent to jail after refusing to testify in death penalty hearing

Lawyer for Greta Lindecrantz says she is being punished for long-standing religious beliefs

A 67-year-old Mennonite woman spent a second day in the Arapahoe County jail Tuesday after she refused to testify for the prosecution in a death penalty case.

Greta Lindecrantz on Tuesday morning was found in contempt of court after she told District Judge Michelle Amico she would not answer questions in the witness stand because of her religious beliefs. Lindecrantz has been called to testify on behalf of the prosecution in an appeals hearing for Robert Ray, who was sentenced to death in 2009 for ordering the murder of Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe, who were witnesses in another murder case.

Lindecrantz worked as an investigator for Ray’s defense team, but those attorneys have not called her as a witness. However, the prosecution wants to question her about her work during the investigation and original trial, said her attorney, Mari Newman. All of her work already is a part of the official court record and there really is no reason for her to take the stand again, she said.

Lindecrantz sat in the courtroom wearing an orange jumpsuit with her hands shackled as Newman argued that she should be released because she is being punished by the courts for religious beliefs.

Testifying would go against her moral and religious views, Newman said.

“Imprisonment has not been effective,” Newman said. “It will not be effective tomorrow.”

But Amico said she had made her decision and was sticking to it. She told Newman she could appeal to a higher court. Until then, Lindecrantz would go back to jail.

“It was a difficult decision for the court to make (Monday),” Amico said.

Newman had asked for a lesser punishment, but Amico responded, “How would less punishment be effective? I’ve imposed jail and she’s still refusing to testify.”

After the hearing, Newman gathered on the courthouse lawn with Lindecrantz’s husband, Dave Sidwell, and supporters from the metro area’s two Mennonite congregations.

“She has a fundamental religious belief against the killing of other human beings and specifically against state-sanctioned killing in the form of the death penalty,” Newman said. “She has refused to testify as a witness called by the prosecution — and the reason, the one and only reason she’s refused to testify, is because to do so would violate her firmly held religious beliefs against the death penalty.”

Because of her religious conviction, Lindecrantz has two choices — stay in jail or abandon her faith, Newman said. On Monday night, Lindecratz was in a cell with nine women, some of whom were sick all night because they were detoxing from drugs. Lindecrantz is old enough to be those women’s mothers, she said.

“For the court to imprison her until she is broken, until her will is broken, and she abandons her faith and her view that she cannot participate in state-sanctioned killing is an abomination,” Newman said.

Sidwell, who also is a Mennonite, said he supported his wife’s stand, saying they both were adamantly opposed to the death penalty.

“She’s not going to change her mind,” Sidwell said. “It’s, to me, a pointless pursuit.”

The Rev. Vern Rempel, pastor of Beloved Community Mennonite Church in Englewood, said he counseled Lindecrantz over the weekend about what she would do when called to the stand Monday morning. Those discussions included figuring out a way that Lindecrantz could comply with the courts without betraying her religious conviction. On Sunday, the congregation gathered around Lindecrantz to pray over the decision.

“On Sunday, she said she had clarity and was ready to do this,” he said. “Really, we felt the strength of her commitment.”

Mennonite opposition to the death penalty dates to 1525, Rempel said.

“This is not something that is not a mood of Greta’s,” he said. “Or a fancy. Or something she’s making up. It has been a lifetime commitment for her.”

While Lindecrantz is spending her second night in jail, the legal drama has been playing since Jan. 20, when Newman first filed a motion in an attempt to keep her client off the witness stand. But Amico repeatedly denied the motion, saying in an order written on Feb. 16 that allowing people to refuse to participate in death penalty cases on religious grounds would disrupt the justice system.

Religious-based capital defense teams would be able to refuse to follow proceedings, rules and laws based on those grounds, Amico wrote. It would create an “absurd and unworkable result” for death penalty cases in Colorado.

Newman said she plans to appeal to a higher court for Lindecrantz’s release. Until then, Lindecrantz remains on jail without a bond. Lindecrantz is scheduled to appear in court at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday.

The court could keep Lindecrantz in jail for up to six months, Newman said.

Nancy Leong, a law professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, said Lindecrantz, the judge and the prosecution are in a rare standoff.

There are several ways it could end, Leong said.

Lindecrantz could change her mind and testify; her lawyer could figure out a compromise such as providing a written statement to the prosecution; or the prosecution could decide Lindecrantz’s testimony isn’t worth the wait, especially if she digs in and is willing to sit in jail for months, Leong said.

The bottom line, though, is the law doesn’t see her religious view as an exemption to contempt of court.

“It’s well-established First Amendment law that any kind of religious view does not provide an exemption to criminal law,” Leong said.

Source: The Denver Post, Noelle Phillips, February 28, 2018

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde