If Ron Lafferty ends up facing a new trial, rebuilding the case after seven years will not be an easy task for prosecutors.
The biggest difficulty will be relocating witnesses and jogging their memories about the murders of Lafferty's sister-in-law, Brenda, and her 15-month-old daughter, Erica."Medical opinions change. The opinions of experts change. The memories of witnesses fade substantially," said Bud Ellett, chief deputy of the justice division for the Salt Lake County attorney's office.
Difficult, yes, but not impossible, said Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson.
"There's no denying there is potential for any number of difficulties that may not have been present (during the first trial)," Bryson said. "But there is no reason that with some extraordinary effort this couldn't be reprosecuted and reprosecuted successfully."
Salt Lake County attorneys have retried more than a dozen cases in recent years because appeals courts have overturned convictions years after the crimes were committed.
"It's every prosecutor's nightmare," Ellett said.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals handed that nightmare to Utah County Monday when it reversed two capital murder convictions against Lafferty, ruling that a district judge used the wrong standard to measure Lafferty's mental competence.
The three-judge panel, in a 2-1 decision, said the state is free to retry Lafferty for the 1984 murders. In the event of a new trial, lawyers could raise the issue of Lafferty's competency now, but not his competency during the original trial.
Utah may also appeal the 10th Circuit Court ruling. While the state ponders its move, and during any appeal process, Lafferty will remain in prison, Bryson said.
If the case is retried, prosecutors must find witnesses they have lost contact with and evidence that may have been misplaced, Ellett said.
The difficulty of retrying the case often prompts prosecutors to negotiate a guilty plea the second time around.
"You have to look at what you can do to salvage the case any way you can. It results in a lot more plea negotiations than you would otherwise have in those cases."
Salt Lake County had to set a homicide convict free after an appeals court ordered a new trial for the man four years after his first trial.
"We had some transient witnesses we could never locate. The case could not be retried and the guy just walked," Ellett said.
In the Lafferty case, most of the witnesses were police officers or government employees of one kind or another, Bryson said.
"People may have moved beyond the state of Utah, but they are people whose locations can be traced," he said.
The state won't have to track down the two key witnesses in the trial. Ricky Knapp and Chip Carnes are still incarcerated in prison for their role in the murders. The two men waited outside the Lafferty home while Ron and his brother Dan murdered Brenda and her baby. The men fled with the Lafferty brothers.
Bryson also has no reason to believe locating evidence used originally in the trial will be a problem.
"I would assume that court personnel have done what they should have done and have kept evidence safe and secure and that it is there in their possession as it was left on the last day of trial," Bryson said.
Randy Johnson, former American Fork police chief, is confident the county's case against Lafferty will still stand seven years later.
"We presented a well-investigated case to the prosecutor," he said. "I was very proud of the case we had then. I'm very confident in that case now."
Johnson wouldn't comment on the quantity or quality of physical evidence that ties the Lafferty brothers to Brenda's and Erica's murder.