While insisting that he intended to take accused child killed Patrick Cody McCormick to trial again, Elko District Attorney Mark Torvinen left the door open that he could change his mind if circumstances dictated in a hearing before Elko District Judge Nancy Porter Monday.
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In the hearing now being webcast on www.coyote-tv.com Torvinen laid out before the judge a very long list of conditions concerning evidence and witnesses he need to verify before he could take the case to trial.
McCormick who had his murder conviction overturned last November by the Nevada Supreme Court is now free on bail awaiting a possible retrial later this year.
McCormick was tried and convicted of the 1995 murder of then 14 month old Jacob Jones.
His trial gain notoriety not only because of the age of the victim but also because McCormick was represented by “rock star” attorney Ron Yengich of Salt Lake city and the fact that Yengich lost.
“I think Marc (Torvinen) is doing everything he should do,” said an attorney connected to the case. “Politically he is in a no win situation so he is showing that he is doing everything he can to uphold the state’s case.”
McCormick’s conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court not because of any impropriety on the state’s part but because of the gross incompetence of Yengich who did not challenge the ‘expert’ testimony of the then Elko County DA Gary Woodbury chief witness Dr. Ellen Clark.
“A new trial with so much time passed would not be easy for the prosecution,” said retired District Judge Mike Memeo. “Witnesses forget, evidence is destroyed or ruined. It isn’t impossible getting another conviction but it isn’t easy.”
Neither is it cheap according to some estimates a new trial for McCormick could cost as much as a $1 million especially if the Elko County has to pay for his defense as well as his prosecution.
After 17 years in prison McCormick who also is suffering from the debilitating Crohn’s disease is indigent and his parents who paid for his legal bills for his first trial are dead.
While his brothers paid for his appeal they are under no legal obligation to pay for his defense should the case go to trial.
According to McCormick’s appeals attorney Rick Cornell, torvinen could avoid the costs of the new trials and the very real chance of losing and even save the state money from a wrongful imprisonment suit with a plea bargain.
“It’s really not that hard,” Cornell said at the time. “McCormick signs an agreement not to sue the state for false imprisonment. He either takes a plea with the time served or the charges are dropped. He walks free and the state and county avoid an expensive trial and a trial they have a real good chance of losing.”
While strategic that course of action would not please the victim’s family.
In a comment on the High Desert Advocate’s website Sandy Foertsch wrote:
“I am Jacob’s grandmother, Ben’s mother. I can not begin to tell you the heartbreak and pain this family has suffered over the last 18 years. We have tried to remain silent and let the Elko District Attorney do his job. We have tried to remain silent in the face of the comments by Patrick McCormick’s brother and friends in order not to try this case in the media. I can no longer just wait and watch. The comment from McCormick’s brother that he (McCormick) has given 17 years of his life, what more could the family of this child want was absolutely unconscionable. If Patrick Cody McCormick is so very innocent, Why did he try to plea-bargain at the first trial? Plea to manslaughter, then too 2nd degree murder when that was refused. These pleas both were refused because the Elko DA Gary Woodbury had an air tight case against McCormick! I also was at that first trial and testified that Jennifer Jones was an awful mother, I did not like her, but she never hurt her children. My question is why wasn’t the fact that McCormick also beat his other children & the women he lived with and the women he was married to, allowed to be submitted as evidence? No one is talking about all of this. What ever happens with the legal system, I truly believe Patrick Cody McCormick was quilty of the brutal murder of my grandson Jacob William Jones, a 14 month old baby. 20 blows to his head alone, neck fractured between C1 & C2, he went into respiratory arrest then full cardiac arrest because C1/C2 control the respiratory center. Jacob was brain dead by the time he got to the hospital. This is NOT SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME, this child was beaten til he died! Whatever happens in the legal system, I know that McCormick will eventually get his due when he burns in hell for the agony and pain he has inflicted on the family by beating an innocent child to death. I just pray that anyone who has helped free him gets the same as well. Patrick Cody Mccormick, may you BURN IN HELL!”
