Earlier this year, Yvette Soutiere was defending Christopher Strawn.
On Friday morning, the assistant public defender held her head in her hands as Strawn, 34, tried to defend himself.
As the second week of Strawn’s murder trial concluded, he followed up on a months-old motion from Soutiere to exclude evidence and testimony from Robert Shem, the now-retired firearms expert of the Alaska State Crime Lab.
This is Strawn’s second trial; the first, earlier this year, ended in a mistrial. Strawn subsequently dismissed Soutiere and chose to defend himself.
With Soutiere now a bystander and watching from the gallery, Strawn failed to argue well enough to exclude the evidence, and Shem took the stand Friday afternoon. Shem proceeded to explain to jurors how pieces of a shotgun buttstock might be linked to a hypothetical murder weapon. In the two years since 30-year-old Brandon Cook was shot and killed on the evening of Oct. 20, 2015, police have never found the weapon that killed him.
Earlier in the trial, witness Tiffany Johnson told jurors she watched as Cook toppled over, dead, after a shotgun blast fired by Strawn. Johnson, who formerly sold firearms in the sporting goods department of Walmart, said Strawn held a shortened shotgun with a pistol-like grip.
When police officers searched Strawn’s home after Cook’s death, they found pieces of a shotgun buttstock. Shem, speaking to jurors, said that based on his expertise and comparisons to the vast 2,000-weapon reference collection at the crime lab, the components at Strawn’s home came from a pump-action Savage Model 67 shotgun or a similar knockoff.
Shem drew a sketch of a Savage Model 67 shotgun and explained how, if portions of its buttstock were sawed off, it could have a pistol-like grip.
Earlier this year, Soutiere asked Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg to exclude Shem’s testimony and the shotgun evidence. There was no proof of a link between the pieces found in Strawn’s home and the hypothetical weapon, she argued.
Even though Strawn dismissed Soutiere, her argument lingered until Friday.
Pallenberg, after hearing arguments from Strawn and Assistant District Attorney Amy Paige, decided to allow the testimony and evidence.
“It may be a link in the chain of circumstantial evidence,” Pallenberg said. “I think the testimony is admissible in that sense.”
While nothing about the pieces of buttstock even show that Strawn owned a shotgun, let alone used one to kill a man, it “may be a link in the chain of circumstantial evidence,” Pallenberg said.
Strawn’s trial began with jury selection Oct. 2. Opening statements came on the afternoon of Oct. 5. The trial may wrap up by the end of the week.
Strawn is facing charges of first-degree and second-degree murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, third-degree assault and weapons misconduct.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or call 523-2258.
