Widmer, 31, was convicted in 2011 for drowning his wife in their Hamilton Twp. home in 2008. It was the third murder trial for Widmer. The first conviction was overturned by juror misconduct. The second jury was hung. He is serving 15 years to life in prison. The first appeal was argued in April and no decision has yet been released.
Detective Jeff Braley resigned last year after an investigation revealed he lied on his job application about his educational and employment experience. Widmer’s appellate attorney Michele Berry-Godsey’s said Braley’s meteoric rise through the ranks of the Hamilton Twp. Police Department because he told officials he served in the “ultra-elite” Special Forces unit of the U.S. Air Force should have been told to jurors. It was later found that he did not.
Judge Neal Bronson, who presided over all three trials, would not allow the jury to hear evidence about Braley’s apparent penchant for lying, which Berry-Godsey said was wrong.
When appeals court Judge Robert Ringland asked Berry-Godsey why the defense didn’t put former Hamilton Twp. police chief Gene Duvelius on the stand to testify to Braley’s shortcomings, she said the prosecutors knew about all the issues with Braley but didn’t disclose everything to the defense.
Berry-Godsey said if they had known everything about Braley, he would have been the center of the defense’s case.
“Is there any evidence in the record indicating either directly or by inference that Mr. Braley manufactured any evidence, contrived any evidence, altered any evidence?” Ringland asked.
Berry-Godsey said the bathtub where Sarah drowned was not in the same condition three months after it was ripped out of the house as it was right after the incident.
Assistant Prosecutor Michael Greer told the judges Braley just wasn’t an important witness and countered that the defense knew about Braley’s faults well in advance of the third trial. Bronson held a hearing in May 2010 on the Braley matters where Braley, Duvelius and others testified at the closed proceeding.
“Whether Lt. Braley bragged about being in special forces has nothing to do with this trial,” he said. “It is a collateral matter. Lt. Braley simply was not that important.”
The judges asked several questions that focused on evidence rules. Berry-Godsey told them Widmer’s Constitutional rights trump rules.
“You have a pattern of almost 15 years of Braley lying to advance his career, manufacturing facts for his benefit, working his way up the police ranks, that’s exactly what you have is a pattern here,” she said. “So if you are able to present that pattern (to the jury) through (Rule) 404b or even not, through Widmer’s due process right. There is no conflict with the rules of evidence here, but to the extent there is the Constitutional right trumps state rules of evidence,” she said.
Prosecutor David Fornshell was not in Middletown for the hearing, but he said the judges likely brought up the rules because presenting impeaching character evidence, such as a felony conviction — which Braley does not have — is not usually allowed if it happened 10 years prior. Braley’s false employment application was filled out in 1997.
Legal expert Ian Friedman said he believes a fourth trial is required.
“Without a new trial there will never be full confidence in the verdict,” he said. “The only way to eliminate that would be to overturn the verdict finally allowing for a trial where the entire story is told.”
About the Author