Hardy murder trial will stay in Custer County

Citing the public’s right to know what is going on in Custer County, District Judge Doug Haught declared Friday that the trial of double murder suspect Jeremy Hardy will be held at the courthouse in Arapaho as scheduled.
It’s slated to begin Jan. 16.
Hardy’s attorneys had filed an application for a change of venue asking that the trial be moved to another county. They contended he could not receive a fair trial in Custer County because of excess publicity and the fact that one of the victims was well known here.
The application was filed Dec. 15, barely one month before the trial was supposed to start.
Judge Haught issued his order keeping it in Custer County following an hour-and-10-minute hearing Friday. Most of the hearing, though, had to do with motions filed by the defense on other issues. Arguments on the change of venue and the judge’s decision on that took only 16 minutes.
After hearing from District Attorney Angela Marsee and defense attorneys Ben Brown and Mitchell Solomon, Judge Haught said he believes Custer County has multiple communities. “It is not a single community,” he said, implying that he feels a jury can be drawn composed of citizens who have not already made up their minds about the defendant’s guilt or innocence.
“The public does have a right to know what is going on in this county,” he said, stating that the motion for a change of venue to another county in the Second Judicial District would be denied.
Hardy, 38, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder with malice aforethought in the so-called road rage shootings of Kent Powell of Arapaho and Billie Jean West of Lone Wolf around midnight of Dec. 16, 2015. Powell lived outside Arapaho and was co-owner of a healthcare business in Clinton.
The application for a venue change did not suggest a county to which the trial might be moved. But in a footnote it indicated Oklahoma law allows changes to another county in the same judicial district any time before a trial starts.
Other counties in the Second Judicial District, to which Custer is assigned, are Washita, Beckham, Roger Mills and Ellis. Their respective courthouses are at Cordell, Sayre, Cheyenne and Arnett.
Hardy’s lawyers said in their filing that the application had to be accompanied by affidavits from at least three “credible persons” living in Custer County. The attorneys said their investigators had spoken with 88 residents of various towns in the county regarding their feelings about whether the accused could receive a fair trial and of those who did not think he could, most were unwilling to sign affidavits.
In her response to defense attorneys, Mrs. Marsee pointed out that Custer County’s population in the last census was 29,293 people. “This county contains multiple towns,” she said, also pointing out that only one of the two murder victims – Powell – lived in the county.
In their request for a change of venue, the defense attorneys said it had to be accompanied by at least three affidavits. They said it was accompanied by six affidavits supporting a change but they had been filed “under seal separate from this application.”
“Under seal” normally means something can be seen only with a judge’s permission, so the affidavits were not available to the news media.

Of them, lawyers Mitchell Solomon, Ben Brown and Shea Smith said, “Each affiant has in a sworn statement, indicating that Jeremy Hardy cannot and will not receive a constitutionally fair trial in Custer County.”
In another footnote, the lawyers said defense investigators tried to speak to persons in the following communities: Clinton, Arapaho, Stafford, Butler, Hammon, McClure, Moorewood, Custer City and Weatherford.
Hardy, reported to be from Pasadena, Texas, was believed to be working in Oklahoma when Powell and Mrs. West were killed in their vehicles as they drove along Interstate 40 returning to their respective homes.