The judge in the Shannon Flowers murder case in Huron decided to delay his rulings on most of the four prosecution and defense motions during a hearing Monday morning.

Flowers, 43, is accused in the February deaths of Brittney Chua and her unborn baby girl. He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and an alternative felony count charges him with fetal homicide in that he allegedly knew or reasonably should have known that Chua was pregnant. He pleaded not guilty during an April court appearance.

In August, Beadle County State’s Attorney Mike Moore filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty.

Defense attorney Jeff Burns of Huron is challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty as it applies to the case.

Prosecutors are proceeding under a provision of the death penalty law that the offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or an aggravated battery to the victim, and that any murder is wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman if the victim is less than 13 years of age.

But in an equal protection challenge, the defense argues that it’s unconstitutional to distinguish or discriminate between those less than 13 and those 13 and over.

Circuit Judge Jon Erickson instructed the attorneys to file briefs on the issue by Dec. 18.

A decision on whether he will suppress a recorded conversation between a police detective and Flowers will come by Friday. Burns argues that authorities were trying to get the defendant to confess, while the detective said he was attempting to keep Flowers from hanging himself the morning he was questioned about Chua’s disappearance.

The judge also said he would withhold his ruling on a defense motion to utilize Chua’s medical records until trial. He granted a defense motion requesting access to Chua’s Beadle County juvenile file.

Erickson delayed his ruling on a prosecution motion to obtain the defense witness list. The state has furnished the defense with its witness list.The next motions hearing has been set for Jan. 25. The jury trial was previously scheduled to begin Feb. 24.

Chua, of Woonsocket, was 16 to 20 weeks pregnant at the time of her death. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

Autopsy results indicated the victim had received numerous blows to the head. Her body was hidden in the city’s compost site east of town.

For the complete article see the 12-01-2009 issue.

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