Pena confession under scrutiny

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--The statement that ultimately led to a first-degree murder indictment against Daniel Ramon Pena is inadmissible because Pena didn't understand what was going on when police came to his house, claimed his attorney Friday morning.

It was on that basis that Darci Bentz, a Fairmont criminal defense attorney, asked Brown County District Court Judge John R. Rodenberg to rule out a taped statement that Pena made to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Sept. 18.

Attorneys for James Robert Ketcher asked Rodenberg for the same thing three weeks ago, saying that investigators failed to advise Ketcher of his legal rights before they started questioning him on their first interview and treated his civil rights almost as an afterthought the second time.

Both Ketcher, 28, and Pena, 16, were indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Saffert, a 79-year old Springfield man found dead in his home on Sept. 15, 2002 by a city meter reader who entered Saffert's house to see if he was home.

The state's cases against both men could be dismissed if Rodenberg rules in their favor. Both cases may go to trial if the judge decides that investigators did not break the law when they questioned the men.

Bentz said Pena's statement doesn't pass legal muster because it was not given freely and voluntarily, as required by state law.

"My concern is, this is a 16-year old boy on suspicion of murder charges, and police came in at 12:30 (a.m.) and they talked for an hour. He never really knew what was going on, given the nature (of the interview). It was coercive, and he couldn't give a free and voluntary statement. In between five and six officers came to his house at 12 o'clock at night. I have to question how free he would feel," Bentz said.

The issues heard in court Friday morning specifically surrounded the transcript of an interview Pena did with BCA agents Ken McDonald and Jeffrey Hansen on Sept. 18. That transcript was submitted as evidence, along with a videotape and an audio cassette of the interview.

Bob Christensen, chief deputy of the Brown County Sheriff's Department, and Hansen took the stand for some brief questioning about the circumstances surrounding the interview.

They, along with a couple others, knocked on the door of Pena's house at 405 W. Van Duesen St. at 12:30 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 18. Pena's brother answered the door and officers came in, asked where Daniel was, saying they had a search warrant. They asked to speak to him and his mother, Nitsa Ann Pena, gave them permission to speak to her son. Police found Daniel in the basement of the house and took him to the police station in Springfield.

Hansen and BCA Agent Ken McDonald interviewed Pena until 1 a.m. on Sept. 18. According to the transcript, Pena originally denied having any involvement with both the attempted robbery of Saffert's house and with the events that ultimately led to Saffert's death.

But by the time the interrogation ended, he told police that he went to the Saffert's home with Ketcher to commit robbery but maintained that he stayed outside as a lookout while Ketcher went inside the house with an object inside a black plastic bag. He told investigators he could hear what were swinging motions coming from inside the house and could see Ketcher running around inside the house.

Ketcher and Pena are facing the possibility of life sentences in state prison if they are tried by a jury and convicted on all six counts in the first degree murder indictments.