The accused cop killer's attorney responds to the state's death penalty filing

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The attorney represents Michael Jayne, who is accused of murdering Santaquin Sgt. Bill Hooser spoke to 2News from a tractor-trailer on May 5, 2024 about the state's recent death penalty proposal.

On Wednesday, the Utah County District Attorney's Office formally filed its notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Michael Jayne on the aggravated murder charge.

“The decision to seek the death penalty was made in consultation with the family of the victim, Hooser, and is supported by the evidence and interests of justice,” Utah County Prosecutor Jeffrey Gray wrote in the filing.

Gray had previously suggested the state might seek the death penalty after the initial charges were announced in mid-May.

“If Mr. Jayne pleads not guilty to the charge, we have 60 days under the law to file a notice of intent to seek the death penalty,” Gray said on May 14, 2024.

Michael Jayne's attorney Rudy Bautista spoke to 2News on Thursday, a day after the notice was filed with the court.

“This is something we obviously always expected given the nature of the charges and the character of the victim in the case,” Bautista said. “We were hoping that the prosecution would wait when we told them we were investigating.” In this case, we believe the evidence would show that Michael unfortunately made some poor decisions when he left the scene “But his intention was not to hit the officer, so it wasn’t a premeditated murder.”

MORE: 911 call released from suspect accused of killing Santaquin police officer

Bautista and his team will meet with Jayne on Friday to discuss the latest development.

“We continue our investigation and have experts review everything to show not only the dynamics of the turning circle and the space and time it takes for a semi-truck to stop,” Bautista said. “One of the key aspects here is that a truck driver’s vision is impaired, particularly at close range. When, in this case, Sergeant was in the vehicle and then got out of the vehicle, Mr. Jayne may not even have known that.” He had gotten out of the vehicle and so we were hoping to complete the investigation so we could find a solution could before this step happened.”

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