Audio By Carbonatix
It’s November 3, and in the Boulder County Courthouse, Judge Daniel Hale is about to rule on a motion filed by Joshua Beckius, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder five years ago at the age of sixteen and was sentenced to forty years in prison (“This Boy’s Life,” March 23). Beckius has said he received incompetent representation — that he was bullied into taking the plea by his attorney, Patrick Furman. He wants the plea set aside. He wants to go to trial.
On the right-hand side of the room sit Beckius’s father, Tim, and Tim’s partner, Carrie Milici. Beside them is Ellishae Elliott, Beckius’s girlfriend at the time of his arrest. The two daughters of Dayton James, the murdered man, sit across the room from the Beckius group. Both look drawn and weary. They have said in the past that they find the prospect of a new trial for Beckius profoundly upsetting; it would take them back to the raw, grief-filled days of their early bereavement.
James was the manager of the Basemar Cinema Savers. He was shot in a malignantly clumsy robbery on April 27, 1993, while closing up the movie house for the night. The shooter was gang member Chamroeun (Charlie) Pa. Prosecutors believe that Beckius, then fourteen, was in the theater with Pa at the time of the murder, waiting in the lobby. Other gang members lurked outside. Under the state’s felony-murder law, Beckius could have been charged with felony murder for his role in the robbery, even if he had no hand in the actual killing. A conviction on that count would have meant life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Josh Beckius himself sits by his attorney, Neil Silver. He watches attentively, occasionally helping Silver shuffle through papers. In mid-October, he had testified that he wasn’t present in the movie house and had only pleaded guilty because Furman had insisted that he would spend his life in prison if he didn’t. There was strong pressure because of the felony-murder law and because Pa had already pleaded guilty, and when there are accomplices in felony-murder cases, whoever pleads first is at an advantage and available to testify against his cohorts. Having read nothing but the arrest report, Furman told his client that the case against him was overwhelming. His own notes reveal that the meeting was stormy and that later he “got in [Beckius’s] face.” Beckius said he was innocent. The debate continued for several days. Finally, “Josh very emotional, crying, leg shaking,” told Furman he would take the plea but he would have to lie to do it.
Silver says the plea was essentially coerced. The case against Beckius rested on the confused and confusing statements of several gang members, and Beckius was unaware of how flimsy much of the evidence was. Furman did minimal research of his own, Silver notes, adding, “A plea not based on fact cannot be knowing, intelligent and voluntary.”
In a courtroom electric with tension, Judge Hale delivers his ruling. It is, almost point for point, a paraphrase of the prosecution’s arguments: The “less than ideal” circumstances of the first lawyer-client meeting do not “bear on the voluntariness of the plea…The defendant was advised of all his constitutional rights,” Hale says.
“The court must be deferential when examining a defending attorney’s performance,” he continues. “It’s all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess a defense attorney’s performance after a conviction.
“The defendant’s motion is denied.”
