DA will seek death penalty in game warden killing
By BARRY HALVORSON news@leader-news.com

FREEMAN

Wharton County District Attorney Josh McCown confirmed Monday he will be seeking the death penalty in the upcoming trial of James Freeman and that he has added some high profile assistance to sit second chair for the prosecution.

"(Freeman, 27, of Lissie) will definitely be tried for the death penalty," McCown said in a phone interview. "We have filed notice of our intent. Of course, it will be up to the jury to make the final decision."

Filling the chair beside McCown during the trial will be Kelly Seigler, former Harris County District Attorney Special Crimes Bureau Chief. Her resignation from that position was announced by the Harris County DA's office on Friday, effective at the end of the day.

Seigler lost an April 8 run-off for the Republican Party nomination for the district attorney election.

Seigler is familiar with the Wharton County area, having graduated from Blessing High School before attending The University of Texas at Austin. Her legal career started in 1987 as an intern with the Harris County DA and she never left the department until she resigned.

During that time, she had a 95 percent conviction rate in felony cases, according to a KHOU report in November of last year.

In discussing the situation, Assistant District Attorney Ross Kurtz said Seigler was added because of her experience prosecuting a number of capital cases during her career. Kurtz said the decision to add temporary staff was made well before Seigler became available.

"We're a county with only three attorneys and Josh knew that we were going to need an additional felony prosecutor during preparations for this trial. We've got 120 other cases that can't be ignored so Josh contacted the Harris County D.A. Office knowing there might be some experienced people available because there is going to be a new district attorney. So when Seigler approached him saying she would be interested in working on a part-time basis it made the choice easy."

The money to hire Seigler was built into the budget along with other potential expenses involved in trying such a case, McCown said.

"When they were preparing the budget, the county commissioners set aside a sum of money in a contingency fund for this specific trial," McCown said. "It includes money for defense expenses along with expert witnesses for both the defense and prosecution. And there is money in the budget for an extra prosecutor.

"We're short staffed and if we ignored the rest of the court docket to prepare properly for this case it would take us years to catch up, if ever, so we had to have help. It will take two full-time lawyers around three-and-a-half months to get everything ready."

With the trial scheduled to start sometime in the fall, Kurtz said the schedule calls for Seigler to officially start work sometime this summer.

"It will be before jury selection," he said. "But she's already visited and met with the rest of us and we've given her materials so she can familiarize herself with the basics of the case in advance."

Freeman is charged with the shooting death of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Game Warden Justin Hurst of El Campo. According to law enforcement reports, Hurst was shot and killed just after midnight on March 17, 2007, following a pursuit that involved a number of law enforcement units. He was reportedly shot four times with an assault rifle during an exchange of gunfire.

The defendant was originally indicted in May 2007, but a superseding grand jury indictment filed with the court in June 2007 charges the defendant with one count of capital murder, three counts of attempted capital murder and three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

In February, 329th District Court Judge Randy Clapp denied an initial change of venue motion in the case, but reserved his final decision until a jury can be seated.

"I will hold the motion open until after jury selection," he said in an interview following his decision. "I'll make it final following voir dire (the questioning of the potential jury pool.) If we can't seat a jury, I'll have to reconsider."