Supreme Court rejects appeal in murder case

The Minnesota Supreme Court denied an appeal for a Bayfield County man who was convicted last year of murdering his uncle in Carlton County.

James Francis Montano was arrested in April 2018 for shooting his uncle, 56-year-old Andrew James Gokee, and injuring Gokee’s son, 38-year-old Hudson Gauthier, in rural Carlton County. Montano was found guilty in January 2020 on all three of the charges against him, including first-degree premeditated murder and intentional second-degree murder for the shooting death of his uncle.

Montano, 35, had appealed his conviction, with state public defenders arguing that the district court in Carlton County erred in denying an “accomplice testimony” instruction for the jury, because the defense was arguing that Montano’s cousin, Hudson Gauthier, actually killed his own father.

In the jury trial leading up to his conviction, defense attorneys Nicole Bettendorf-Hopps and Joanna Wiegert had argued that police believed Gauthier when he said Montano shot his father and himself and failed to collect evidence that could support any other possible killer.

The defense pointed to inconsistencies in Gauthier’s testimony, his possible motive to kill his father and grand jury testimony from a physician who believed Gokee’s gunshot wound potentially came from a handgun and not the rifle.

Hopps said the gun fragments found in the victim’s head were inconsistent with casings found at the scene, and unspent casings found in the rifle.

The Minnesota Supreme Court did not weigh in on the issue of guilt or innocence, only whether the court should have allowed an accomplice-testimony jury instruction. At the district court level, Judge Leslie Beiers denied the instruction because the defense presented Gauthier as an “alternative” perpetrator.

The Supreme Court affirmed the district court decision in an opinion filed March 24, stating there was “no evidence that Montano and Gauthier worked together as accomplices to murder Gokee.” The Supreme Court noted that to warrant an accomplice-testimony instruction, “there must be some evidence that the defendant and witness were accomplices,” according to the precedent set in the court case State v. Swanson. Accordingly, a “witness who is alleged to have committed the crime instead of the defendant is, as a matter of law, not an accomplice” under the precedent.

Montano was sentenced to life in prison for murder plus another 15 years for attempted murder. Montano is incarcerated at the state prison in Rush City.

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Man pleads guilty in 2019 death of friend

A Cloquet man has pleaded guilty this week just before he was to go to trial for shooting and killed a friend after a night of drinking in November of 2019.

After a year of delays due to Covid-19 restrictions and an original claim of self defense, Thomas Allen Micklewright pleaded guilty in St. Louis County district court in Duluth Tuesday to felony first-degree manslaughter in the death of 65-year-old James Arthur Couture.

In exchange for the plea, Micklewright is set to receive a seven-year sentence in prison at a sentencing hearing May 24, a departure from what could have been a sentence of just more than 12 years. Micklewright is free on bond and was ordered to take part in a presentence investigation.

According to the criminal complaint from 2019, officers from the Fond du Lac Police Department and St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office responded to Micklewright’s home on the 3500

block of Brevator Road at approximately 5 a.m. Nov. 9. While the home is only about four miles from the Fond du Lac Reservation’s business center, it lies across the county line in Brevator Township and St. Louis County, which is why the case was prosecuted in Duluth.

Micklewright’s wife initiated the call to 911, but — according to the complaint — Micklewright admitted to the dispatcher during the call that he intentionally shot Couture with a .40 caliber pistol. He would not say why he shot the 65-year-old Couture.

When officers arrived, they found Couture in the kitchen and confirmed that he was dead. They did not find any weapons on Couture. Officers detained Micklewright and secured the scene without incident.

Law enforcement later learned that Micklewright and his wife were hosting Couture and his wife throughout the night, and that each couple had been consuming alcohol. A breath test administered to Micklewright at 11 a.m., approximately six hours later, revealed a .20 breath alcohol concentration.

A preliminary medical examiner report determined the cause of death was a perforating gunshot wound and ruled the death a homicide.

Couture, who was also known as “Weasel,” is survived by his wife, six children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

— Pine Knot News