Polson man seeks truth

POLSON — Despite what some media outlets have reported, William John Matt is not a convicted killer. He has been convicted of accountability for robbery, a felony, and he has served prison time. But he hasn’t killed anyone.

“I’m trying to get back into reality,” Matt said. “People look at me and they make me out to be a murderer. The day I got sentenced, people had cameras in court, like I got away with murder.”

Matt, 40, has gone through a long road since that fateful, drunken day in 2004. When he recounts the events, he speaks slowly, his body heavily scarred and tattooed. He sits in his father’s home, a free man who just six years prior had begun serving 100 years in prison with no chance of parole.

Two people he purportedly was with on June 22, 2004, Kevin Oldhorn and Andrew Greybull, still sit in prison for committing deliberate homicide in the death of Steven Rodriguez, a friend of Matt’s. Both men avoided trial by coming to plea agreements, with Greybull’s deal including a stipulation that he would testify against Matt. Both Oldhorn and Greybull received 50 years with 20 years suspended for the deliberate homicide charge. Matt, too, sat in prison for the same crime until recently, his release aided by a 2008 Supreme Court decision that overturned his conviction and granted him a new trial. His defense attorney was found to have not included Matt in a critical stage of his trial, a meeting with the judge, prosecutor and the defense attorney.

“The in-chambers hearing held in Matt’s absence at the close of the State’s case-in-chief was a critical stage of his trial, Matt did not validly waive his right to be present at the hearing, and failing to include him at the hearing violated his right under Article II, Section 24 of the Montana Constitution to appear and defend in person,” the Supreme Court’s 4-3 majority decision reads. “The State has not met its burden of demonstrating that this error was harmless. Accordingly, we reverse Matt’s conviction of deliberate homicide (felony murder), vacate the District Court’s judgment, and remand this case for a new trial.”

Rather than come to a new trial, Matt’s defense attorney came back with plea deal after deal, saying this one was “the sweetest.” But Matt held out, finally asking for and getting 10 years, with credit for six years, two months served and the remaining three years, 10 months to be served on probation. The agreement let him loose on Oct. 5 after sentencing in Missoula District Court.

“I’m a knucklehead, but I don’t be doing that killing stuff,” Matt said. “What I’m guilty of is buying a half gallon of vodka with the proceeds of the boots. If I knew he were dead, why would I hawk a dead man’s boots? I feel terrible and I’m sorry for what happened, but [Rodriguez] was my friend and the state made it sound like I killed him and they still do.”

His conviction had been based on testimony of the other two men who claimed Matt had been the ringleader during the murder, resulting in the longer sentence. Matt has claimed all along he was passed out drunk during the crime and when Greybull refused to re-testify against Matt, charges were reduced to accountability for robbery. Matt is freed and living with his father Earl in Polson, waiting out the nearly four years of probation he has to serve as conditions of his sentence.

“There’s no hard feelings there,” Matt said of Greybull and Oldhorn, who happens to be his nephew. “At the beginning, I knew what the state was doing, threatening them, telling them what to say. I prayed for them. It’s just hurtful that the state would go to these extremes. If the Supreme Court didn’t give me a new trial I’d still be sitting there, 100 years, no parole.”

Not everyone, naturally, is happy about the decision. Missoula Deputy County Attorney Andrew Paul, who has prosecuted the case since the original trial in 2005, is one of those, one who believes the high court’s reversal is a “horrible miscarriage of justice.”

“He was convicted of homicide,” Paul said. “He was convicted at a trial by a jury of his peers. It didn’t take long for them to come to their decision because the evidence against [Matt] was so compelling. The Montana Supreme Court reversed the decision after assuming prejudice against Matt and not looking at all the facts.”

The evidence against Matt, Paul said, is pretty convincing. From the testimony of Greybull to reports from Matt’s former cellmates in prison that he bragged of killing someone with a chance to get away with it, all signs seem to point to Matt getting away with just what he said he would. But without his eyewitness Greybull, Paul realized he had no chance of again convicting Matt of deliberate homicide.

“He’s getting beat up in prison because he testified against a fellow native in a white man’s court and he didn’t want to have to go through that again,” Paul said of Greybull, who six years after his conviction is still only 24 years old. “[Greybull] still has years to serve on the inside and the prison rules are don’t snitch and don’t testify against anybody else. It doesn’t mean his prior testimony was dishonest, I believe 100 percent he was telling the truth.”

Public defender Noel Larrivee, who was part of the team that defended Matt after the Supreme Court decision, said justice was served in the case and that the agreement reflects what happened the day of the crime.

“When it became who was involved in doing what, the amended charge better fit what the reality was, not just what people’s statements were in exchange for some plea bargain,” Larrivee said. “Plea agreements often include certainty with regard to the outcome. This effectively saved another protracted appeal. The whole thing’s gone on for six years and would have gone on for another period of time. [The plea agreement] reflected both the activity and legal reality of another protracted appeal.”

The crimes, trials and appeals have clearly ignited passions on all sides, Larrivee said, but the fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court made a ruling and the affected parties subsequently came to an agreement, avoiding another trial. The most interesting aspect, Larrivee said, may have been what triggered the appeal to the Supreme Court in the first place: the question of whether Matt missed “a critical stage” of his trial.

“In each instance, whichever side you’re arguing, there are cases that say he should be there all the time, others say it’s not critical for him to be there,” Larrivee said of recent cases dealing with the subject. “I think if there’s a trend, the trend is clearly in favor of having a defendant present in all the proceedings. The safest thing is to have your client present for all pretrial and in trial proceedings; if you go into chambers, the defendant goes into chambers. It’s an area of the law which our state Supreme Court in the last two or three years has started to scrutinize and is clearly trending towards the defendant being present.”

Matt appreciates the second chance the appealed decision gave him, but he also knows people think of it as merely a technicality. He doesn’t listen to all that. He’s on a quest to clear his name, to stay on the straight and narrow and prove to any that will listen that he may have a checkered past, but it doesn’t include murder. And if all goes as planned, which Matt knows as well as anyone isn’t always a sure thing, he’ll get through his probation and on with his life.

“I can’t say I feel their pain or hurt,” Matt said of Rodriguez’ relatives. “I would like that family to know I did not do this crime.”