A Ketchikan man found guilty in 1994 of murdering his wife and hiding the body has been trying to overturn his conviction ever since.
Ronald Wyatt might now have a shot, after an appellate court reversed a decision by Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg that he did not have grounds to seek post-conviction relief.
Wyatt was indicted in 1992 for killing his wife, Diane, whose body was found wrapped in a tarp and weighed down with anchors and a chain in a cove; her skull was fractured and she had been shot in the head.
He was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to 104 years in prison for first-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
In 2000, Wyatt filed an application for post-conviction because, he claimed, his attorney “actively impeded” his desire to testify on his own behalf. The attorney who was appointed to represent him, however, instead pursued a claim that the trial judge had failed to obtain Wyatt’s express waiver of his right to testify. That claim was dismissed by the superior court; the appeals court upheld the decision in a 2004 ruling.
Wyatt then filed a second application for post-conviction relief, this time on the grounds that his first post-conviction relief attorney was incompetent. The superior court again dismissed his claim, but this time, the appellate court ruled in Wyatt’s favor.
The issue stems from Wyatt’s trial, when his attorney announced he would not put him on the stand. The judge advised Wyatt of his right to testify, but did not press him to formally declare whether he wanted to get on the stand.
Wyatt alleges that he had expected the trial judge to ask him whether he wanted to testify, but that the judge “instead turned to other matters.”
Wyatt claims that his attorney told him that he would not permit him to testify. Wyatt’s son corroborated his account, alleging that “my father argued strongly that he wanted to testify on his own behalf, but his lawyer was insistent that he would not let him testify.”
But instead of pursuing those allegations, Wyatt’s post-conviction relief attorney instead focused on the judge’s actions. That tactic, according to the appellate court ruling, was “doomed from the outset” and was “obviously meritless” under case law. The court further found that the attorney’s choice of issues was incompetent, and that Wyatt was entitled to litigate his case.
“The superior court should not have dismissed this claim, and Wyatt is entitled to proceed,” the ruling states. The case was remanded to the superior court for further proceedings.
Contact reporter Liz Kellar at 523-2246 or liz.kellar@juneauempire.com.