Both attorneys for triple-homicide suspect Brent Ward Luyster withdrew as counsel during his arraignment Monday morning in Clark County Superior Court.
The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced last week that it will not pursue capital punishment against Luyster, 35, who is accused of fatally shooting three people and injuring a fourth at a Woodland home over the summer and an attempted jail escape last month.
As he entered the courtroom, Luyster — a known white supremacist — smiled at people sitting in the gallery, including his mother and children, and the surviving victim of the July 15 shooting.
Breanne L.A. Leigh, 32, who was critically wounded, shouted to Luyster, “Remember when you shot me, and I didn’t die? Because I do.”
Other members of the audience told Luyster, “Your life is over.”
His attorneys, Bob Yoseph and Ed Dunkerly, filed a motion before the hearing requesting that both remain as lead and co-counsel, respectively, in spite of their client no longer facing the death penalty.
However, Judge Robert Lewis ruled only one could stay on as Luyster’s counsel, in light of the prosecution’s decision and because two attorneys would be an unnecessary cost to taxpayers, he said.
When Lewis asked who would stay on, Yoseph replied “neither.”
“No one attorney can handle this case by themself with a summer trial date,” Yoseph said in a phone interview after the hearing. “It’s going to take a year to get ready. There’s nobody in this county who can try this case.”
In their motion, the attorneys argued Luyster’s case is complex and has the potential for a mental defense of diminished capacity — a legal defense meaning a person cannot form intent.
Luyster will be back in court Wednesday morning to get a new attorney and set trial dates. The prosecution had hoped to schedule the trial for summer.
Earlier in the hearing, Luyster entered not-guilty pleas to three counts of aggravated first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first- and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a weapon by a jail inmate, first-degree malicious mischief and attempted second-degree escape. Aggravated murder is the only charge in Washington that carries the possibility of the death penalty.
Luyster has been in custody since July in the triple-homicide and is also accused of trying to escape from the Clark County Jail the night of Feb. 12 through a broken cell window. The alleged attempt was interrupted by a corrections deputy conducting a routine perimeter check of the jail.
After Luyster’s hearing, a family member of one of the victims told media that it is the “biggest injustice ever” that prosecutors aren’t pursuing the death penalty.
“It was the second worst day of my entire life,” she said.
