Court sets execution date for murderer

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Supreme Court has again set an execution date for Michael Allen Lambert, who was convicted in the shooting death of a Muncie police officer more than 16 years ago.\nThe state’s high court also issued two rulings Tuesday denying death penalty appeals of Frederick Michael Baer, condemned for the murders of a woman and her 4-year-old daughter at their home near Lapel; and of Wayne D. Kubsch, who had been tried twice in St. Joseph County and sentenced to die for a triple murder.\nIn a ruling dated Monday, the state Supreme Court denied Lambert’s latest appeal and ordered a new execution date of June 15.\nShortly before Lambert was to be executed in June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift an order by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocking his execution. The federal appeals court ultimately lifted the stay, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined for a fourth time to review his case.\nHe then filed another appeal with the Indiana Supreme Court, which it denied on Monday. Lambert again argued that his death sentence should be overturned because the state’s high court had held that the jury in his case was improperly exposed to victim impact evidence.\nHe also argued that the state Supreme Court through the course of his litigation – via separate rulings – a majority of the five justices had dissented on the propriety of his death sentence. But the 4-1 ruling this week said in each of the individual decisions, a majority of justices had voted to deny him relief.\nLambert was condemned for shooting Muncie officer Gregg Winters in December 1990. It occurred after officers arrested Lambert, who was then 20 years old, for public intoxication. They briefly patted him down and put him in the back seat of Winter’s cruiser, and a few minutes later, Winters was shot five times in the back of his head and neck. He died 11 days later.\nA message seeking comment was left Tuesday at the office of Alan Freedman, who has served as Lambert’s appeals attorney.\nLambert is still a party in a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of Indiana’s lethal injection process, contending it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. But that did not stop the execution this month of David Leon Woods, who also was a party in the case. The case is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 17.\nIn one of the state Supreme Court rulings Tuesday, justices rejected arguments by Kubsch that a special prosecutor should have been appointed because St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak had previously represented a lifelong friend of Kubsch’s – Brad Hardy – whom Kubsch tried to blame for the triple murders.\nThe bodies of Beth Kubsch, 31; her ex-husband, Rick Milewski, 35; and their son, Aaron Milewski, were found with multiple stab wounds in the basement of Kubsch’s home in 1998.\nProsecutors said Kubsch, who was heavily in debt, killed Beth to cash in on a $575,000 life insurance policy he had taken out on her three months earlier.\nKubsch was first sentenced to death in 2000, but in 2003, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial because the jury had improperly viewed Kubsch’s videotaped statement.\nKubsch contended among other things that his second trial was tainted because Dvorak’s previous relationship with Hardy made it impossible for him to treat Kubsch impartially. But the Supreme Court said there was no sign of conflict.\nKubsch’s attorney, Eric Koselke, said Tuesday he could not comment because he had not yet seen the ruling. Dvorak said he was pleased with the ruling “and confident that this decision will withstand further judicial scrutiny” if Kubsch seeks further appeals.\nThe court also denied the appeal of Baer, who had argued that he did not get a fair trial and that his death sentence was inappropriate. Justices said they were not going to second guess the Madison County Circuit Court jury that recommended the death penalty in 2005.\n“In light of the nature of the offense shown by the defendant’s brutal and savage slaying of a 4-year-old girl and her young mother, and the lack of demonstrated virtuous character in the defendant, we decline to intervene in the jury’s determination that the death sentence is appropriate,” the court wrote.\nBaer was convicted of murdering Cory Clark, 26, and her daughter, Jenna, on Feb. 25, 2004, in their home near Lapel. Prosecutors said Baer robbed and sexually assaulted Cory Clark to feed a drug habit and a deviant sexual appetite, then slashed the throats of both mother and daughter.\nDefense attorney Mark Maynard said he was disappointed with the ruling, and that he was considering filing a petition for another hearing before the Supreme Court.\n“It appears on first blush that there may be grounds to file such a petition,” he said.