Prosecutors aim to prohibit mention of Torey Adamcik at rescheduled Brad Compher trial

The pretrial motions included Bannock County Prosecutor Steve Herzog and Compher’s court-appointed attorney, John Scott Andrew of the Bannock County Public Defender’s Office, reviewing proposed jury questions. Compher was also in court for other pretrial motions Herzog recently filed that requested Gabiola to make rulings that would limit some of what Andrew could say during the trial.

One of the more intriguing motions Herzog filed involved asking Gabiola to not allow Andrew or any other member of Compher’s defense team to present evidence that a convicted murderer from Pocatello confessed to a fellow prison inmate that he killed Jones.

Another one of the several pretrial motions Herzog filed centers on polygraph and voice tests that were administered to two possible suspects in the case before Compher was arrested.

According to Herzog’s first motion, investigators handling the Jones case interviewed both Torey Adamcik and Brian Draper as potential suspects. Adamcik and Draper were both convicted of first-degree murder for the September 2006 stabbing death of their Pocatello High School classmate Cassie Jo Stoddard.

Jones was 25 years old when she was found stabbed to death inside of her Pole Line Road home on Sept. 28, 2004. Pocatello police reportedly uncovered DNA evidence placing Compher inside the home.

He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder for Jones’ death on Sept. 10, 2014, almost 10 years from the date of the crime.

According to Herzog’s motion, Jones’ murder occurred approximately two years before Stoddard’s. Adamcik reportedly lived less than a block away from Jones at the time of her death, according to Herzog’s motion.

In 2008, investigators interviewed Steve Roberts, one of Adamcik’s fellow prison inmates. Roberts told the investigators that during a conversation with Adamcik in prison that Adamcik admitted to killing Jones, according to Herzog's motion.

Investigators interviewed Adamcik and Draper again in 2014. During those interviews, Adamcik denied killing Jones and Draper said he would have thought Adamcik would have told him if he actually killed Jones, Herzog’s motion states.

Herzog is asking Gabiola to prevent Compher’s defense team from mentioning Adamcik’s supposed confession during the upcoming trial unless Compher’s defense team is able to present foundational evidence to support its admission.

Additionally, Herzog's motion requests that Compher’s defense team be prevented from mentioning a dream that a different potential suspect, Robert Spillett, had in which he purportedly described details of the crime scene.

Herzog states in his motion that there is no evidence that places Spillett at the scene of the crime, nor is there any evidence that connects Adamcik to the crime and therefore the reference to Adamcik’s confession or Spillett’s dream should be prohibited during the trial.

Herzog's other motion about polygraphs and voice stress tests involves Spillett and another potential suspect, Tim Daniels. Herzog asks Gabiola in that motion to prevent Compher’s defense team from presenting evidence resulting from those tests and suspects because “the general rule in Idaho is that the results of a polygraph are not admissible into evidence,” and that “if the defense were permitted to present (such evidence) to the jury it would not help the jury find facts but goes to substitute the jury’s credibility-finding mechanism with physiological responses and their interpretation by psychologists.”

Both Herzog and Andrews orally argued the motions during a hearing on Feb. 27. Gabiola ultimately took the motions under advisement and intends to issue a written order for them before the trial begins.

Herzog also filed the recent motion asking for the trial to get pushed back again. Herzog in that motion argued that the state has identified 145 witnesses for the upcoming trial, many of whom are forensic experts that analyzed various DNA evidence when the case was being investigated in 2014. Many of those experts, Herzog says, no longer work for the three crime labs that were involved in testing that evidence and the state needs additional time to locate them.

Ultimately, Gabiola approved Herzog’s request to again postpone the trial but did not yet rule on the prosecutor's other motions. 

Compher has been waiting for a jury trial for almost a decade since the debate surrounding his level of competency first began, which in 2022 culminated with 6th District Judge Stephen Dunn declaring Compher to be intellectually disabled to a degree that would make it cruel and unusual punishment for him to face the death penalty.

Dunn retired in 2020 but remained on the case to rule on the intellectual disability claim and then had the case reassigned to Gabiola.

The process first involved determining whether or not Compher was competent enough to understand the proceedings against him. In Idaho, there is not a defense for being clinically insane. Instead courts must prove that a defendant is capable of criminal intent and can understand the charges against them and the court proceedings.

A defendant will remain in the custody of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, in some cases at an Idaho Department of Correction facility as was the case with Compher, until the individual is deemed competent enough to stand trial.

After Dunn declared Compher competent to stand trial in July 2019, the debate began surrounding the level of Compher’s competency and whether sentencing him to death would be a violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Compher was ultimately declared intellectually disabled in April 2022 after numerous motion hearings and requests for experts to testify on behalf of the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office and Compher’s defense team.

With the death penalty off the table, Compher still faces the possibility of a life sentence if convicted of the felony first-degree murder charge.

Compher is due back in court on Sept. 25 for a pretrial conference.