State appeals new-trial order for Strahl
Posted: Monday, October 06, 2008
SIOUX FALLS (AP) -- Prosecutors have appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court a judge's order giving a Nebraska man a new trial for the 1998 beating death of a Beresford man.
James Strahl of Dakota City, Neb., received mandatory life in prison a year ago after being convicted of first-degree murder for killing William O'Hare at his farm house.
Strahl also was sentenced in Elk Point to a consecutive 10-year sentence for grand theft.
Circuit Judge Steven Jensen in August granted Strahl's request for a new trial on the murder conviction because a witness who lied in another investigation likely influenced jurors.
Jurors might have convicted Strahl on a lesser homicide charge but it's unlikely they would have found him guilty of premeditated murder without the inmate's testimony, the judge concluded.
Jensen allowed the grand theft conviction to stand.
Prosecutors said Strahl's fingerprints were on a can of beer and a potato chip bag found in O'Hare's house and his DNA was on a cigarette butt in O'Hare's station wagon, which was found a few blocks from where Strahl was living.
Attorneys for the state said the two men met at an adult bookstore in Sioux City that Strahl had sex with O'Hare for money and then killed him with a hammer when he refused to give Strahl a ride home.
O'Hare's body was found about three weeks later.
The witness who testified that Strahl confessed to the crime while the two were in jail together, prisoner Aloysius Black Crow, also was a snitch in the Union County case against David Lykken.
Lykken was charged with killing Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson, both of Vermillion, in May 1971.
In preparing for that trial, it was revealed that Black Crow had another inmate pose as Lykken to record a supposed confession.
Black Crow pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury and was sentenced to another 10 years in prison.
Strahl's lawyer, Phil Peterson, asked for a new trial.
Prosecutors dismissed and have not refiled murder charges against Lykken, who is serving an unrelated 225-year prison sentence for raping and kidnapping his girlfriend in 1990.
His mother, Esther Lykken, and brother, Kerwyn Lykken, have a lawsuit pending in federal court seeking $400,000 from six investigators on grounds they did thousands of dollars in damage when they searched the family farm in 2004. The lawsuit also claims the officers falsely accused the family of not cooperating.
James Strahl of Dakota City, Neb., received mandatory life in prison a year ago after being convicted of first-degree murder for killing William O'Hare at his farm house.
Strahl also was sentenced in Elk Point to a consecutive 10-year sentence for grand theft.
Circuit Judge Steven Jensen in August granted Strahl's request for a new trial on the murder conviction because a witness who lied in another investigation likely influenced jurors.
Jurors might have convicted Strahl on a lesser homicide charge but it's unlikely they would have found him guilty of premeditated murder without the inmate's testimony, the judge concluded.
Jensen allowed the grand theft conviction to stand.
Prosecutors said Strahl's fingerprints were on a can of beer and a potato chip bag found in O'Hare's house and his DNA was on a cigarette butt in O'Hare's station wagon, which was found a few blocks from where Strahl was living.
Attorneys for the state said the two men met at an adult bookstore in Sioux City that Strahl had sex with O'Hare for money and then killed him with a hammer when he refused to give Strahl a ride home.
O'Hare's body was found about three weeks later.
The witness who testified that Strahl confessed to the crime while the two were in jail together, prisoner Aloysius Black Crow, also was a snitch in the Union County case against David Lykken.
Lykken was charged with killing Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson, both of Vermillion, in May 1971.
In preparing for that trial, it was revealed that Black Crow had another inmate pose as Lykken to record a supposed confession.
Black Crow pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury and was sentenced to another 10 years in prison.
Strahl's lawyer, Phil Peterson, asked for a new trial.
Prosecutors dismissed and have not refiled murder charges against Lykken, who is serving an unrelated 225-year prison sentence for raping and kidnapping his girlfriend in 1990.
His mother, Esther Lykken, and brother, Kerwyn Lykken, have a lawsuit pending in federal court seeking $400,000 from six investigators on grounds they did thousands of dollars in damage when they searched the family farm in 2004. The lawsuit also claims the officers falsely accused the family of not cooperating.
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