Box Elder County, Utah (ABC 4 News) - It was a murder that shocked a small community; a young college student working his way through school, stabbed and left for dead while working the graveyard shift.
For years, no one knew who did it and the only piece of evidence was a drop of blood on a dollar bill. But in 1984, when the crime occured, DNA evidence didn’t exist so detectives saved that dollar bill and then the case went cold for more than two decades. Fast forward to 2005, Glenn Howard Griffin is charged with the murder of Brad Perry after that dollar bill is retested.
But this story isn’t about the murder, or the men who were charged in the crime it’s about the money; a million dollars worth.
“What do you think the taxpayers would say if they knew how much money was spent?” ABC4 news asked County Attorney Stephen Hadfield in a sit down interview in early February, “ I can’t speak for taxpayers, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. It’s a lot of money but it’s a big case,” Hadfield said.
Turns out though, the County Attorney’s Office didn’t handle the case they outsourced the prosecution to the law firm of Stevenson & Smith to the tune of nearly 1.1 million dollars from 2003 to 2010. And the outsourced prosecutors were making a lot more than the County Attorney’s staff, Stevenson & Smith’s counsel were making a $150 dollars an hour verse what the average prosecutor in Box Elder County makes which is $33 dollars an hour.
In the end, Stevenson and Smith won the case and Glenn Howard Griffin was convicted of murder. Case closed? No. A second suspect emerged in the same case, Wade Maughan. This time though, Hadfield took over the prosecution but still paid Stevenson and Smith to be co-counsel…but the county lost the case.
“When I look at the numbers, it’s a troubling amount of money that was paid out…I’ve never seen this before,” Troy Rawlings is not only the County Attorney for Davis County but he’s also the head of Utah’s Indigent Defense Fund. Rawling sent a letter to Hadfield’s office in 2008 where he expressed his concerns over the “astronomical costs” associated with the prosecution. Rawlings also wondered why the County Attorney’s Office wasn’t used because there's a statue in Utah Law where countys can access the AG's office when needed, “in our opinion it didn't need to happen because of the attorney general's office was ready to assist."
But Hadfield says when he took over in 2007, prosecution was well under way. Stevenson & Smith had already been spearheading the prosecution for several years and it would have hindered the prosecution. However, in our interview the County Attorney did say this, “Hindsight is 20/20 but I couldn’t felt comfortable handling it any other way.”
