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Attorneys for 18-year-old Meagan Grunwald — who was recently sent to prison for her role in a 2014 crime spree that left one police officer dead and another wounded — are asking for a new trial, claiming the trial judge was biased.
Fourth District Judge Darold McDade on July 8 ordered the teen to serve a prison term of 25 years to life. The sentence came several months after a jury found Grunwald guilty of first-degree felony aggravated murder and 10 other crimes.
The jury found that Grunwald, then 17, was criminally culpable Jan. 30, 2014, when she drove her truck through two counties as her boyfriend, 27-year-old Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, fired a gun out the back window at police officers and passing motorists.
Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Cory Wride was killed that day, while Deputy Greg Sherwood was severely wounded.
In recently filed court papers, Grunwald's attorneys argue that McDade crossed the line in some of his comments at her sentencing hearing.
"Grunwald now asserts that this court's comments at sentencing infringed upon her rights to a fair trial," attorney Douglas Thompson wrote, "as those comments demonstrate that this court was not impartial and operated under a bias originating outside of the proceedings in the case."
When reached by The Salt Lake Tribune, Thompson declined to comment on the motion and would not give any specifics about the comments in question.
At the sentencing hearing, McDade's only comments not directly related to the case involved Garcia-Jauregui, whom Grunwald had dated for several months before the shootings. McDade told Grunwald that in 2008, during his first year as a judge, he sentenced Garcia-Jauregui to prison for up to 15 years for attempted murder.
"I knew the type of person he had the potential to be," the judge told Grunwald during her sentencing hearing. "It's very hard for me to believe that in the short time you knew him, you didn't see that as well."
In 2007, Garcia-Jauregui stabbed a man 21 times with a Phillips screwdriver after running him over with his car in Springville and assaulted another man with a tire iron or crowbar. Court documents indicate that he was friends with the two men and had just left a birthday barbecue for one of the men in Provo.
Garcia-Jauregui pleaded no contest to reduced counts of second-degree felony attempted murder and third-degree felony aggravated assault. McDade opted to run the two convictions concurrently.
During Grunwald's sentencing, McDade also spoke about how jurors were "troubled by what they had to do" in the case, and told Grunwald that he watched her demeanor during court proceedings and the trial.
"You are a victim," he told the girl, "but I don't believe you are a victim in the way you look at it."
Deputy Utah County Attorney Sam Pead said the motion is "pretty typical" in a murder case, and said prosecutors don't believe there was anything — including Grunwald's assertions that the judge was biased — that would justify a new trial.
"Ultimately, the question of guilt was decided on by a jury who determined she was guilty beyond reasonable doubt," he said.
No hearings have been set to argue the most recent motion, because Grunwald's attorneys have asked for time to receive transcripts of the sentencing hearing and trial. Once they receive those documents, they will file an amended motion with more specific allegations, according to court records.
Along with the 25-years-to-life sentence for Grunwald, McDade also ordered that a five-years-to-life aggravated robbery sentence run consecutive to the aggravated murder conviction.
The judge, however, ordered the remaining nine charges — including a count of attempted aggravated murder in Sherwood's shooting — to run concurrent to the other sentences. This means Grunwald will be in prison for at least 30 years before she is considered for parole.
Grunwald testified at trial that Jan. 30, 2014, while on a drive with Garcia-Jauregui, he learned during a phone call that the parole board had issued an warrant for his arrest.
As they were stopped at the side of the road in Utah County, Wride happened to pull up to see if they needed help. When Wride asked their names, Garcia-Jauregui gave a false name.
The teen testified that as Wride checked their information in his patrol vehicle, Garcia- Jauregui told her that if she didn't do what he said, he would shoot her and kill her family.
Soon after, Garcia-Jauregui killed Wride, 44, by shooting out the rear window of Grunwald's pickup truck.
Later that day, Garcia-Jauregui shot and wounded Sherwood, 39, in Santaquin.
Prosecutors pointed to police dashboard-camera recordings and witness testimony as evidence to counter Grunwald's claims that she was threatened to act as getaway driver by her boyfriend. They claim she was a willing participant who was compelled by her love and loyalty to Garcia-Jauregui, who was fatally wounded that day during a shootout with police in Nephi.
Twitter: @jm_miller