Trial of robbery suspect delayed as he seeks new attorney

Circuit court Judge Benjamin Lewis reluctantly continued the pretrial conference for Jesse Joseph Boyer, 35, of Cape Girardeau to March 28 in part because Boyer wants a new attorney.

“We’re just not on the same page,” Boyer said of associate public defender Leslie Hazel. “I’m not mad at her.”

Lewis did not buy Boyer’s contention, however, that Hazel was unresponsive to Boyer’s best interests. Boyer said he had made motions to exclude witness testimony and to suppress witness testimony because of conflicting accounts in Boyer’s robbery case dating to 2015. Lewis said just because the accounts conflict does not mean they were going to be excluded from evidence in the case.

“I would see why she would encourage you not to file motions that do not have legal bearing,” Lewis said. “Those motions were never going to happen. You can consider them denied.”

Boyer’s main complaint was Hazel was prepared to go to trial Feb. 10, as scheduled.

“I told you I didn’t want to go to trial,” Boyer said to Hazel during recess. “This is my life we’re talking about.”

Lewis was prepared to go forward with the Feb. 10 trial if Boyer could not find a lawyer.

“You don’t really have a choice,” Lewis said. “We’re going to have a trial on this unless there is a plea. These cases are getting pretty old already. This robbery case has been around since May. It needs to be resolved.”

Lewis reconsidered when learning Heaven Lee Marsh, 21, of Cape Girardeau, charged in the same robbery, was scheduled for trial March 15. Lewis informed Boyer the soonest he could go to trial would be August.

Boyer has been in the Cape Girardeau County Jail since his arrest April 15, with a $100,000 bond.

Boyer is charged with first-degree robbery and armed criminal action, both felonies. On March 31, the victim said Boyer struck him in the head with a pistol and stole a bag of medication he had just picked up from a pharmacy, according to a probable-cause report by Cape Girardeau police officer Joshua Gregory. Marsh was driving the vehicle where the robbery occurred, Gregory wrote.

At the time Boyer was charged in the robbery, he was on bail on a forgery charge dating to May 2014.

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