After 23 years as a criminal defense attorney, Mark Groettum has seen plenty of flaws in human nature, but he wasn't prepared for what transpired in a Hibbing courtroom last week.
A Chisholm man, whom Groettum was trying to keep out of prison on assault charges, attacked him in the courtroom in front of the judge and jury.
William Edwin Lehman Jr., 56, bloodied and bruised Groettum's face with a barrage of punches before courtroom security subdue the defendant.
Lehman was standing trial in St. Louis County District Court after being accused of going to his next-door neighbors' apartment in Chisholm on Dec.19 and stabbing two men while complaining that the music they were playing was too loud. He threatened to kill them and used racial epithets in describing his intentions to police, according to the complaint.
The courtroom incident unfolded after Lehman had made a motion -- outside the presence of the jury -- for a mistrial, claiming his lawyer had provided ineffective counsel.
Sixth Judicial District Judge James Florey denied Lehman's motion and asked the bailiff to bring jurors into the courtroom.
Just as jurors were being seated,Lehman attacked Groettum, who was sitting at the counsel table looking at his notes.
The lawyer said he thought he sustained three to five punches to his head, cutting his lip, blackening an eye and bending the frame of his reading glasses. He said it was over in about five seconds.
Groettum said his client wanted a mistrial because Lehman claimed Groettum wouldn't ask witnesses questions Lehman wanted asked.
St. Louis County prosecutor Brian Simonson said he believed the attack was orchestrated by Lehman in an attempt to get a mistrial and retry the case.
"It's just sad that it happened to a good person like Mark Groettum, who is there working hard for Mr. Lehman and Mr. Lehman decides to manipulate the system," Simonson said.
Groettum, 48, is a part-time public defender who also has a private law practice in Hibbing.
Fred Friedman, Northeastern Minnesota's chief public defender, was teaching a law class at the University of North Carolina when contacted by the court on Thursday and informed of the attack on one of his public defenders. Friedman said he and Florey spoke over the phone.
"My personal opinion is that you can't reward people for creating violence in the courtroom and you cannot give them a new lawyer and you cannot give them a mistrial," Friedman said.
Florey ruled that the defendant's misconduct was an attempt to manipulate the system and that he shouldn't be able to benefit from it. A motion for a mistrial was denied.
The trial resumed Thursday afternoon with Lehman representing himself.
The case went to the jury on Friday. Simonson said jurors deliberated less than two hours and found Lehman guilty of all six charges against him involving the attack on his Chisholm neighbors.
The jurors then deliberated a second phase of the trial in which they could consider whether Lehman should receive a longer sentence because it was the third violent crime Lehman had been convicted of.
According to court documents, Lehman has a 1992 assault conviction involving a stabbing, a 2000 conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and prior felony convictions for armed robbery and escape, which stemmed from a bank robbery with the use of a firearm and escape from custody with the use of a firearm.
Simonson said it took jurors less than 10 minutes to find that Lehman deserved a longer sentence.
Florey immediately sentenced the defendant to 14 years in prison on the assault charges and five years in prison on a terroristic threat conviction, with the time to be served concurrently. The judge also found Lehman to be in criminal contempt of court for assaulting his attorney and added six months in prison for that crime.
A message left for Lehman at the St. Louis County Jail in Duluth on Tuesday wasn't immediately returned. He is scheduled to be transported to the state prison in St. Cloud on Thursday.
Groettum said the attack won't affect his ability to do his job. He said he's never heard of a Northland attorney being attacked in a courtroom and doesn't expect to hear of it happening again. But...
"Sometimes maybe we relax a little bit too much, and sometimes we have to be more aware of the dangers," Groettum said.
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