BOISE — Judge Steven Boyce sanctioned a Mountain Home attorney Thursday afternoon for filing a late-night error-filled motion asking to intervene in the murder case of Chad Daybell.
Boyce told attorney Terry Ratliff he was angry when the motion was filed “and I think I’m angry now” during the tense 20-minute hearing in Ada County.
Ratliff filed the motion to intervene and continue the trial on March 29 at 11:42 pm, just two days before jury selection was set to begin in the case. Several words were misspelled – including “motion,” “continue,” “proceedings” and Ratliff had the case number wrong, according to Boyce. He also claimed three times in the motion that he represented Daybell as his defense attorney, but that was not true.
The filing was entered into the iCourt system on Sunday, March 31 – hours before potential jurors were scheduled to arrive at the courthouse. Boyce, his staff and attorneys had spent the previous week going through jury questions in Boise.
“On Easter Sunday, my staff attorney, who had an opportunity finally to travel home and spend Easter with her family after a very long week, was interrupted out of her church services,” Boyce said. “She contacted the court and said we had an emergency. The emergency was we had a motion to continue the trial.”
Boyce had to contact the prosecution and defense and work with court clerks to deal with the motion. He immediately sealed it and a hearing was later scheduled for Thursday. The motion was still sealed as of Thursday afternoon when Ratliff showed up with his attorney, Michael Bartlett.
“While I appreciate the time and research Mr. Bartlett has put into the case, we don’t have a party appearing in this case before me. You are not the defendant, you are