Ketcher

appeal

denied

Springfield man pleaded guilty to charges in death of Edwin Saffert

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- An appeal made by a Springfield man for his part in a September 2002 murder was denied by the Minnesota Court of Appeals Tuesday.

The higher court found that the county district court, where Ketcher's case was heard, did not error when it denied a motion made by James Robert Ketcher, 27, to withdraw his guilty plea.

Ketcher is one of two men convicted on charges stemming from the death of Edwin Saffert, 79, in Springfield on Sept. 15, 2002. Both men entered guilty pleas to aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder and are currently serving prison sentences.

Ketcher's attorneys argued that because Ketcher didn't expect Saffert to be home, the Brown County District Court made a mistake in denying the motion to withdraw the guilty plea because it didn't establish an adequate factual basis for the plea.

Specifically, Ketcher contended that there was no adequate basis for the plea because the prosecutor's questioning denied the issue of whether or not the killing was foreseeable. The court also felt that Ketcher didn't establish a "fair and just" reason to withdraw the guilty plea.

Under questioning, Brown County Attorney James Olson asked Ketcher if he planned to hit Saffert. Ketcher agreed and said that no one was supposed to be home. Olson then asked Ketcher if he would agree that "if you go into somebody's house at four o'clock in the morning to commit a burglary, there's a good chance somebody will be home, somebody is home, something like this can happen?"

"Yes," Ketcher replied.

"So you would agree, wouldn't you, that it's foreseeable that if you commit a first degree burglary, basically going into an unoccupied home of another person to steal, it's foreseeable that there could be a death as a result of that?," Olson asked.

"Yes," Ketcher replied.

"With that in mind, how do you plead to the charge of intentional or aiding and abetting intentional murder in the second degree, guilty or not guilty?," Olson asked.

"Guilty," Ketcher said.

The court determined that during the conversation, Ketcher admitted there was sufficient evidence to support a guilty plea when he agreed that if a person enters a house to commit a burglary, there is a good chance someone might be home.

The court also felt that Ketcher and co-defendant Daniel Ramo Pena knew they were going to Saffert's house to burglarize it. Ketcher's belief that Saffert wasn't home carried little weight in the court's eyes "because (his) belief was based on a rumor he had heard." Because the two had a plan in case Saffert was home, Saffert's presence in his own home and his murder were foreseeable, the court ruled.

On that basis, the court concluded that Ketcher's plea was made accurately, voluntarily and intelligently and that the Brown County District Court had an adequate basis to establish that Saffert's murder was foreseeable.

In order to withdraw a guilty plea, a defendant must show that the withdrawal is needed to correct an "manifest injustice", which exists if a plea is not accurately, voluntarily or intelligently entered, the court ruled.