Witnesses, evidence weighed as Guill pre-trial scramble begins
Photo by Jennifer McBride Douglas Guill confers with his lawyer, Michael Sherwood at court in Polson. His trial date was scheduled to begin Monday, March 3, in Thompson Falls.
Sanders County residents Douglas and Nicole Guill, accused of years of confining and sexually abusing Douglas Guill's daughter, appeared in Lake County District Court last Wednesday with their attorneys to hammer out some of the last procedural roadblocks between Douglas Guill and his week-long trial, scheduled to begin March 3.
The Guills were to be tried jointly, but Judge Deborah Kim Christopher separated the cases Wednesday by granting a continuance filed by Nicole
Guill's lawyer, Noel Larrivee, and denying a continuance filed by Michael Sherwood, representing Douglas Guill.
In the five-and-a-half hour hearing, Christopher handled 34 motions as the lawyers hashed out what evidence could be admissible. Sherwood and
Daniel Guzynski, a Montana Assistant District Attorney who is serving as a special prosecutor for the Guill case, also debated which witnesses should be allowed to speak on which topics during the upcoming trial.
The list of witnesses has been whittled down from 200 to between 30 to 50, Larrivee said. Also Wednesday, Christopher granted motions dismissing one charge of felony sexual intercourse without consent against Nicole Guill and a misdemeanor sexual assault charge facing Douglas Guill.
Nicole Guill still faces two counts of felony assault and one count of misdemeanor assault, while Douglas Guill is charged with two counts of sexual assault without consent, two counts of incest and one count of sexual assault, all felonies.
Charges in both cases could potentially send the Guills to prison for more than 100 years.
Douglas Guill, according to court documents, allegedly sexually abused and imprisoned his daughter between the ages of 6 and 22, telling her “he was God and that he decided who would go to heaven and who would go to hell.”
Sherwood said he will be searching for an expert witness to refute testimony from a prosecution doctor who said the scars on Douglas Guill's daughter could only have been sustained pre-puberty. A nurse said that it was impossible to determine whether the scars were more than three weeks old, but Guzynski questioned her expertise.
Sherwood asked Christopher to dismiss incest charges against Douglas Guill for incidents that allegedly occurred when his daughter was over the age of 16. Sherwood spoke about a 1997 Montana case which de-criminalized sodomy for consenting people over age 16, but Christopher pointed out that sodomy and incest are different charges.
Christopher added that if she ruled in Sherwood's favor, she would be opening the door for potential child abusers to “groom” their children
until age 16 and then molest them without consequence.
Christopher ruled that the alleged victim's ex-boyfriend could not testify because of rape shield laws unless Sherwood could prove that the alleged victim's scars might have been caused by consensual sex. Christopher also limited testimony on Douglas Guill's reported past violent acts against people other than his daughter.
“What I'm objecting to is the attempt to insert any act or any violence done against any person by Douglas Guill in the past 20 years into the case,” Sherwood said. Christopher said the witnesses could only speak about acts of violence that the alleged victim knew about, because they could be relevant to Douglas Guill's daughter's state of mind. The admission of a letter which Douglas Guill's ex-wife, Candice Guill, allegedly wrote was also discussed. The letter reportedly stated that Douglas Guill's daughter had been “pursuing [Douglas Guill's] body for years.”
Sherwood asked Christopher to exclude the letter because he said it hadn't been identified in a search warrant. While the warrant gave officers the authority to seize a letter from Candice Guill, Douglas Guill's ex-wife, Candice Guill said she had destroyed the letter and police picked up a different document.
Sherwood renewed his request to see a videotape from the women's clinic that examined the alleged victim, but Christopher would only allow Sherwood's expert to see it because of the alleged victim's privacy. By the same token, Christopher refused to provide pictures of Nicole Guill's genitalia, requested by the prosecutor, unless sufficient probative value existed. Guzynski said he needed the photos for “identification purposes.”
Douglas Guill took the stand himself to deny the testimony of a Sanders County deputy, who said Guill had told him “you got me” during a cigarette break after he had been arrested. Guill refuted making the statement and said he hadn't been mirandized before the discussion. Finally, the judge also promised to again address bail for Nicole Guill, who had been released, but was wearing an ankle bracelet that costs her $900 per month.