One step closer to death penalty

COEUR d’ALENE — Jurors agreed Tuesday that aggravating factors surrounding Jonathan D. Renfro’s actions before and after he murdered Coeur d’Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore call for a stiffer penalty.

The 12-member panel deliberated for almost four hours in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court before rendering the verdict around 7:30 p.m., pushing the trial into its third phase, the mitigation phase.

The mitigation phase will begin Monday at 9 a.m. in Courtroom 1 of the old Kootenai County courthouse.

Renfro was convicted last week in First District Court of first-degree murder for killing Moore by shooting him in the face with a 9mm handgun.

But according to Idaho law the case can’t proceed toward the death penalty until jurors agree that aggravating circumstances existed to increase the culpability of the defendant.

State law allows both sides to bring evidence before a jury. Starting next week, Renfro’s defense team will take center stage to argue on behalf of their client’s lack of malevolence.

Before delivering the verdict Tuesday evening, the jury spent the day listening to testimony from the state’s witnesses as prosecutors built a case to show that Renfro was a persistent danger to the public.

One of the witnesses, Denver Hart, who is serving 20 years to life for killing his stepfather, burning the body to dispose evidence, and for a conviction of having sex with a 14-year-old girl with autism, told the court Renfro admitted to deliberately shooting Moore in the face.

Hart met Renfro in a maximum security pen at the county jail two years ago and the two were confidants for a few months before Hart was shipped to prison.

Renfro reportedly told Hart he was a collector and enforcer — a person who collects drug debts and metes out harm to users who can’t pay the dealer — and that he was burgling cars on the night he killed Moore.

“He told me he aimed and shot him in the face,” Hart, stocky, bald, bearded and dressed in red prison pajamas with three tiers of shackles, told a quiet jury. “(He said) the best place to shoot a pig was to shoot him in the face” because police officers wear body armor.

Defense attorneys during the first phase of the trial argued their client had accidentally shot Moore in the face, while prosecutors said it had been a calculated shot. The admission could be construed as an aggravating factor, and could be used to argue for Renfro’s execution.

Hart, 48, who was transported from Boise to testify for prosecutors, spent most of his time on the stand responding to barbs from defense counsel. To discredit Hart, death penalty attorney Keith Roark painted the witness as a ruthless killer, liar, child rapist, and the prosecutor’s patsy who offered evidence to gain favor. He couldn’t be trusted with the truth.

“The idea was you would get some leniency,” Roark told Hart, who objected.

“I didn’t think about that at the time,” Hart said.

“You concealed evidence,” Roark said. “You not only shot and killed your stepfather, you burned his body to conceal evidence.”

“Yes sir.”

“And you groomed this 14-year-old girl,” Roark said. “You put yourself in a position where she would rely on you.”

“That’s not how it worked.”

Another state witness in whom Renfro reportedly confided a plan to escape by taking a jailer hostage was transported from prison to testify Tuesday, but refused to cooperate with prosecutors.

Michael McNearney, who is in prison on a rape and theft conviction, could not remember divulging Renfro’s plan to jail staff. He stuck to one answer as prosecutors repeatedly asked what he know of the breakout plan.

“I have no recollection of that,” McNearney said.

In turn, prosecutors called as a witness the retired detention deputy who remembered the incident.

Linda Simmons told jurors she received a note from McNearney when he shared a pod with Renfro, and met with him in the jail’s law library. McNearney exposed the plan, Simmons said, because he was afraid someone would be hurt.

The state also called Randy Krieg, 61, another jail inmate who Renfro allegedly threatened to kill because he felt Krieg showed him disrespect by calling him a punk.

Krieg however, said Renfro’s threat was hollow and not meant to be taken literally.

“If little Johnny wants to kill me, put us in the same cell and I’ll give him a good little butt whooping and we’ll figure it out our own way,” Krieg said.

Prosecutors asked Krieg if he was afraid to tell jurors the truth because he feared being labeled a “snitch.”

“I’ve been called a snitch 14 times and never said nothing to nobody,” Krieg said. “I’ve been called a rat and a thief … all they know how to do is spout off … there’s no basis for it.”

But correction deputy Steve Malcolm said Krieg voiced concern over Renfro’s threats.

“If Krieg said he never talked to deputies about Mr. Renfro …?” Deputy Prosecutor David Robins asked.

“That would be a lie,” Malcolm replied.

In his closing arguments, Robins reiterated that Renfro shot Moore because he was an on-duty officer, which constitutes an aggravating circumstance. Robins said the defendant killed Moore to perpetrate robbery and while he was on the prowl to further commit burglary. Witnesses had testified that Renfro was easily provoked, and that the slightest antagonism resulted in death threats.

“A man willing to kill someone who called him punk,” Robins said. “That is a propensity to murder.”

With their verdict, jurors moved Renfro one step closer to being executed.

The trial is the first capital trial in the First District Court since 1999 when Scott Yager faced the death penalty after being convicted of killing Idaho State Police Trooper Linda Huff. Yager was eventually found to be mentally disabled and wasn’t executed. So far, Renfro has not taken the stand in the trial that began last month.