PORT ANGELES — Amber Steim’s defense attorney asked for a second lawyer Wednesday and said he intends to file a motion to drop the murder charge against his client.
Port Angeles attorney Ralph Anderson, who is representing Steim in her first-degree murder case involving the highway death of a nurse in 2011, said he anticipates the trial will begin as scheduled July 23.
“I’m counting on going on that day,” Anderson told Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams in a status hearing.
Williams set a June 1 deadline for pretrial motions. Responses must be filed by June 20, with rebuttals due by June 27.
Steim, 25, is charged with first-degree murder with extreme indifference in connection with the March 2011 death of 44-year-old Ellen DeBondt, a well-known nurse and outdoorswoman from Crescent Bay.
High alcohol level
State Patrol troopers said Steim was nearly three times over the legal limit for alcohol when she crossed the centerline on state Highway 112 and struck a vehicle driven by DeBondt.
DeBondt was killed instantly in the morning wreck east of Joyce.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly filed a motion in early March to amend Steim’s charges to include murder.
Steim also is charged with vehicular homicide and two counts of witness tampering for allegedly phoning her mother and a friend from jail and asking them to say she drank alcohol after the crash because she was in pain.
She is being held in the Clallam County jail on $500,000 bond.
Steim originally posted a $100,000 bail but was remanded back to jail after the Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring bracelet she was wearing detected alcohol in her system Oct. 30.
Anderson asked the court to add Port Angeles attorney Stan Myers to the defense.
Williams said he would take the matter under advisement.
“The difference, of course, between the state and the defense is the state has law enforcement,” Anderson told Williams.
“I have one investigator. The state has a staff. I don’t have a staff. The state has other attorneys. I don’t have any other attorneys.”
Anderson, who has 11 first-degree murder cases on his resume, including one with Myers, said a second defense lawyer is mandatory in similar cases in other counties.
Kelly said the court has the discretion to appoint a second counsel in complex cases.
“It’s very rare,” Kelly said.
“I do not believe this is the sort of case that warrants it.”
Weekend work
Kelly said she will be out of the office for seven out of the next 10 weeks for a trial and will spend her weekends working on the Steim case.
She said she does not have the luxury of delegating pretrial motions to deputy attorneys because her office is understaffed.
“Frankly, defense counsel is far more experienced at murder cases than I am,” Kelly added.
Williams set a pretrial hearing for June 28 at 9 a.m.
_________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
