A trial jury could not come to unanimous decision Monday on whether a Lander man killed a house guest with a metal bar, or whether he did so but was too mentally ill to rationalize what he was doing.
Fremont County District Court Judge Jason Conder dismissed the hung jury at noon Monday after it deliberated from midmorning until nearly 9 p.m. Friday, then reconvened Monday and failed to reach a unanimous verdict.
Among the 10 women and two men who sat through a weeklong second-degree murder trial last week for Michael Vigil, 39, there was a “sure personal conviction that will not be swayed,” according to a jury note the judge read aloud in court.
Conder made a finding in court that the jury hasn’t been lazy or negligent; it has been attentive and punctual, even deliberating into the evening as a blizzard worsened outside Friday. He didn’t want to make them keep deliberating at the risk of coercing away someone’s belief.
“If I continue to throw (jury duty) instructions at them, telling them to keep doing it, it seems I’m telling one of those jurors to give up their genuine conviction,” said Conder. “I don’t know how I can do that. It is the last thing in the world that I want to do.”
Two female jurors who spoke to Cowboy State Daily outside the courthouse Monday said it was a “very difficult process.” They declined to give their names or the exact numerical split among jurors.
The state’s case just wasn’t strong enough, both women said.
“All of the jurors were very respectful, we were all very respectful,” one woman said. “I just don’t think enough was presented to us to say ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’”
There was “a good amount of us that couldn’t decide because we needed more,” she added.
In a hearing later Monday afternoon Vigil’s attorney Ryan Semerad, of The Fuller and Semerad Law Firm, asked Conder to acquit Vigil based on the argument that no reasonable jury could convict him with the state’s set of evidence.
Conder denied that motion and scheduled the case for a new trial, May 19.
Semerad then asked Conder to reduce Vigil’s bond from $500,000 cash-only to $20,000. He offered the use of an ankle monitor, said Vigil receive help from a loved one and could get back to living live in the world under a series of rigid conditions and monitoring.
Conder denied that motion again, saying there’s agreement from both prosecution and defense that Vigil killed Jorgenson in a violent event, though there’s a dispute about whether he’s legally culpable for doing so. The judge voiced a concern about the safety of the community, and about whether Vigil could maintain his mental health and stay on his. medications outside of jail.
Let’s Go Again
The case prosecutor, Fremont County Assistant Attorney Ember Oakley, told Conder she does intend to keep prosecuting Vigil. Wyoming law says a hung jury doesn’t prejudice the state’s case.
Vigil was charged last spring in the death of Warren Jorgenson, 57, who was found dead in Vigil’s back yard with at least three skull injuries on April 14.
Vigil called the police himself, to say he’d killed a man with a bar. He also told police Jorgenson was trying to take advantage of him sexually.
Vigil has suffered from schizophrenia for about two decades.
Through Semerad, Vigil had tried to prove to the jury that he was not guilty by reason of mental illness.
Wyoming defendants can be found not guilty through mental illness if they can prove by the greater weight of the evidence that they were so grossly and demonstrably impaired by a mental illness that they couldn’t rationalize the wrongfulness of their conduct or conform their actions to the law.
Last Spring
Vigil had gone to the Loaf n’ Jug store April 13 and encountered Jorgenson. Vigil bought the man some alcohol and invited him back to his own home, according to statements given in court.
The pair hung out and talked. At some point, Jorgenson’s behavior turned “weird,” Vigil would later tell police.
Vigil, reportedly a victim of childhood sexual abuse, grew scared and believed that Jorgenson wanted to rape him, he told investigators. Vigil also said Jorgenson was undressed and had tried to pull Vigil toward him, according to court documents.
The physical evidence indicates that Jorgenson was, rather, lying face-down in Vigil’s bed when Vigil struck him around five times on the back of his head and on his back, Fremont County Attorney Ember Oakley told the jury during her closing statements earlier Friday.
Oakley displayed a photograph of Jorgenson’s head with three deep gashes, and another of his back with two long magenta bruises crossing his ribs and triceps area. One of Jorgenson’s skull fractures left an opening in his skull leading to his brain, she related from prior court testimony.
The prosecutor argued that these injuries prove that Vigil acted “purposefully and maliciously” — a nod to the legal requirement that a jury can’t convict someone for second-degree murder unless the state proves the defendant acted with that state of mind.
“To swing a bar on a man that is face-down so many times you splatter blood from one end of the room to the other … so hard you leave his skull open to his brain” shows malice, said Oakley.
Trees Through The Blood
She displayed photographs of a small window in Vigil’s home, through which barely-budded trees appeared from outside; blood splattered the pane. She showed another of a door in Vigil’s home with its knob completely ripped out.
Another photo Oakley displayed showed Jorgenson’s bare back with his Eastern Shoshone tribal identification card, partially-burned, sitting on his flesh. His pants were on, the prosecutor noted.
Oakley dismissed as incomplete Vigil’s argument that he was too mentally ill to rationalize or fit his conduct to the law, and played a recording of a police interview by Lander Police Department Detective Randy Lutterman.
“I was kinda buzzed too, but I was still – I was able to stop the situation from happening,” Vigil told Lutterman in the recording. “But I’m sorry I used lethal force.”
This, and a later statement to Dr. Katherine Mahaffey of the Wyoming State Hospital that Vigil was angry that night, indicate that Vigil wasn’t irrationally scared, but angry, said Oakley.
Vigil had been having unwanted visitors, squatters and violent encounters, according to court statements. People kept taking advantage of him, said Oakley.
“He was tired of being taken advantage of. He didn’t think the police were helping him. He’d been kicked out of (the grocery store where he shopped) and he wanted Mr. Jorgenson out of his home,” said Oakley.
When Jorgenson went and laid in Vigil’s bed, that made Vigil angry, she theorized.
“Mr. Vigil feels sorry for himself and decides he’s the victim of all life’s circumstances. Add booze,” she said. “Alcohol and Mr. Vigil’s anger is a deadly combination.”
Alcohol
Vigil’s breath-alcohol content about six hours after the attack was a .016%, according to court statements.
This created a dispute between the prosecution and defense about whether drunkenness was a large factor in his state of mind that night. Wyoming’s mental illness defense doesn’t work if the illness was brought on by self-induced intoxication.
Oakley noted Vigil’s own statements that he’d been drinking and that the breath reading was several hours after the attack, so by extrapolation, he could have been much drunker then.
Semerad countered, pointing to a statement Vigil made about taking a couple shots of liquor hours after the attack. he recalled testimony by Vigil’s longtime friend that this wasn’t a hard-drinking phase of his life, but it was one of mental health decline.
This Gaping Hole
The facts of the case aren’t knit together by a sudden pivotal onset of rage as Oakley theorized, but by two decades of schizophrenia culminating in terrifying and deceptive delusions, Semerad indicated to the jury during his closing statements Friday.
“It’s a sad truth that many people fundamentally misunderstand mentally ill, mentally disabled people,” said Semerad. “Often they want connection, like we all do. Sometimes they struggle with boundaries.”
Semerad pointed to Vigil’s months of struggle, recent suicide hotline calls and a lack of evidence that his proper medication was in his house at all.
Whether Vigil was properly medicated at the time of the attack was disputed on both sides.
It would be bizarre for Vigil to show Jorgenson, a complete stranger, kindness then suddenly turn on him with no stewing relationship issues or prior conflicts, Semerad indicated.
The defense attorney pointed to other bizarre circumstances: Vigil’s half-baked attempt to clean the blood with detergent and alcohol; his statements that this was due to a fear of HIV/AIDS; his meandering interviews; his numerous statements that he was scared. Vigil called dispatch the morning of April 14 to report he’d killed a man with a bar; and he was frank about it throughout the investigation.
The evidence leads to only two logical theories, Semerad told the jury:
Either, one, Jorgenson was in fact trying to rape Vigil and Vigil reacted defensively; or, two, Vigil was suffering from paranoid delusions that cut him off from reality and convinced him that he was about to be raped.
Under either of those scenarios, the jury should acquit Vigil, Semerad said.
Why Not?
Semerad pointed to what he characterized as holes in the state’s case: ingratiating behavior by the detective during Vigil’s police interview, a lack of blood and other analysis, the state’s focus on court witnesses who had only known Vigil a short time, and a police agent’s familiarity with Vigil’s erratic behavior.
Yet Semerad called to the witness stand a woman who’d been Vigil’s friend for 15 years, and a neighbor of 4.5 years, he noted.
“(His neighbor) was pretty clear, he’s not a malicious liar. If he says something that’s in fact false, you kind of have to believe he believes it,” said Semerad.
Jorgenson had alcohol and methamphetamine in his system around the time of his death. His meth-driven behavior was likely a factor in Vigil’s terror as well, said the defense attorney.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
