Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Skrocki wrote in his response to the court filed Tuesday that "Wade's motion ... is leagues away from justifying any court action at all, let alone total dismissal."
Skrocki was responding to Wade, who said he was being denied his right to counsel because his mail had been opened by jail staff.
Wade, 29, is accused of the 2007 murder of his Sand Lake neighbor, Mindy Schloss.
In a motion filed Dec. 16, defense attorney Suzanne Lee Elliott claimed that three times since October state Department of Corrections staff opened Wade's incoming correspondence, including one package marked in red ink with the words "Special legal mail. Open only in presence of inmate."
Skrocki wrote in his response Tuesday that no one from the prosecution's team has seen the contents of the mail and that the jail has fixed its error so that it won't occur in the future. "Any further legal action should be filed in a civil suit outside the confines of this prosecution," he wrote.
The high-stakes capital punishment case has both sides filing a flurry of motions before the Fairbanks trial in March. Most of the motions have to do with what will be allowed in the trial, that is what jurors will be allowed to hear.
Jurors will be the ones deciding if Wade is guilty and if he should get the death penalty.
Federal prosecutors are trying to allow jurors to hear what are called "aggravating factors" to justify putting Wade to death. According to court paperwork filed last week, prosecutors allege the case warrants the most severe punishment because:
• Prosecutors say this isn't the first time Wade has killed. They say he also killed Della Brown in 2000 even though a jury acquitted him of the charge. "The failure to make the jurors aware that the defendant committed a prior murder would leave them with a false impression regarding the defendant's violent character and his criminal past," Skrocki wrote in a Dec. 18 document.
• Prosecutors say that even if Wade is kept behind bars for life, he is a danger to all around him, especially female prison workers. The "violent sexual predator" side of him has been harmful in the past and is an indication of his danger in the future, they say.
• Prosecutors also say they have evidence that Wade showed no remorse for Schloss's death. This also demonstrates his potential to commit crimes again, they say.
Wade is at the Anchorage Jail awaiting his trial.
Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.
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