Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — There still could be another delay, but for now a trial date has been set in the case of a Gile, Wisconsin, man accused of sex crimes.
Jury selection in the trial of Phillip R. Laguna Jr., 71, is scheduled to begin March 2, with the trial commencing following the selection of a jury.
Laguna is charged with two counts of first-degree child sexual assault with a person under the age of 13 and one count of child abuse-intentionally causing harm to a child.
Although Laguna’s trial is scheduled to begin in early March, there may be another delay if an appellate court issues a stay while it decides whether Laguna can be released from jail prior to trial.
“If the court of appeals says, ‘Yes, we’re going forward with this’ and there is a stay in effect, this court is not going to say, ‘Well I don’t care what the court of appeals says, I’m going to go ahead anyway.’ This court would not do that, the court would abide by whatever the court of appeals does,” Price County Judge Kevin Klein said at a status conference in the case Friday. Klein is hearing Laguna’s case.
“The court does understand that may have a bearing on how the parties approach this and certainly on Mr. Laguna’s situation,” Klein said.
The discussion around the appellate court halting the case centers around a motion Laguna’s attorney, Craig Haukaas, filed seeking Laguna’s release without needing to post the $50,000 cash bond in the case.
In the motion, Haukaas argues a number of delays have prevented Laguna from receiving his right to a speedy trial since his arrest in June 2018.
These include the original presiding judge, Patrick Madden, dying in the summer of 2019; Laguna’s original attorney withdrawing from the case in December 2019; and the suspension of jury trials in the state of Wisconsin due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Haukaas argues that while the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s suspension of jury trials also suspended the statutory right to a speedy trial, there’s no reason to interpret the order as suspending another part of the relevant state laws that requires the release of defendants from custody if they aren’t given a trial within the timeframe for a speedy trial.
In Friday’s status conference, Klein asked the parties to keep him apprised of any news regarding the appellate court’s decision.