Lawyer withdraws, trial of man accused of murdering two Eagle Mountain boys postponed

PROVO — In a short-notice hearing Friday afternoon, Kent Cody Barlow's murder trial scheduled for Monday in the deaths of two 3-year-old boys was canceled. New dates for the trial have not yet been set.

Friday's decision to delay the trial, after multiple previous rulings that the trial should take place in September, was based on a Utah Supreme Court ruling in an emergency motion filed by Barlow's attorney, Benjamin Aldana, asking the high court to reconsider a motion to allow him to withdraw from the case that the 4th Circuit court had denied.

After the Utah Supreme Court granted Aldana's motion on Friday, his co-counsel Melissa Flowerday told the judge overseeing the case that she could not proceed with the trial without him. Prosecutors objected, but after discussion she formally asked for a delay in the trial and the motion was granted.

Utah County Assistant Prosecutor Ryan McBride spoke Friday about the position of the victims, the mothers of the two little boys, who had previously asked the judge to continue the trial without further delays.

Barlow's accusations

On May 20 of this year, Barlow, 28, was charged by writ of murder with two counts of first-degree murder (a first-degree felony) and possession of a controlled substance (a Class A misdemeanor).

He had previously been tried on two less serious counts of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, rather than murder. Shortly after taking office, Utah District Attorney Jeff Gray filed amended and more severe charges. A spokesman for his office said Barlow acted with “depraved indifference to human life,” which meets the requirements for a murder charge.

The two three-year-old boys – Odin Jeffrey Ratliff and Hunter Charlie Jackson – had been playing in a horse pen in Eagle Mountain and were killed when a car left the road and crashed into the Cedar Valley Stables on May 2, 2022.

Witnesses said Barlow was showing off his car and driving fast when he lost control and the car went off the road and into the corral.

Previous attempts to delay the process

Barlow's lawyers had previously tried several times to postpone the trial date, and the judge in charge of the case had repeatedly ruled that the trial should take place in September.

Although Fourth Circuit Judge Robert Lund temporarily granted an eight-day postponement of the trial, Barlow's attorneys decided to keep the original dates because the witnesses were already planning to appear on the original dates.

Aldana took an extended leave of absence beginning in June due to his father's terminal illness, saying he and other attorneys with the Utah County Public Defender Association could not adequately prepare for the scheduled trial without additional time. The attorneys requested a delay of the trial due to Aldana's absence, but Lund ruled against it on July 30.

By that time, Lund had already rejected Aldana's request to postpone the trial to allow more time for preparation.

Barlow's lawyers asked the Utah Supreme Court to consider Lund's July 30 order not to delay the trial, but the court denied their request, saying the judge has discretion whether or not to proceed with a trial and Lund had not abused that discretion.

On August 26, the judge denied a motion by Aldana to recuse himself from practicing law, despite Aldana's claim that he could not effectively represent Barlow while he was grieving. Lund cited Aldana's arguments in court on motions in the case in August and his understanding that Barlow still wants to be represented by Aldana.

Lund said there was no evidence that Aldana's capacity to conduct business was impaired and said her co-counsel Flowerday was also competent.

“There is no doubt that Mr Aldana's continued involvement in the case is desirable. His historical knowledge of the case would be of benefit to the trial team,” the ruling states.

Aldana filed his petition directly against Lund in the Supreme Court on September 6, challenging the Supreme Court's decision on Aldana's request to resign. He asked the high court to grant him “a leave of absence from this profession to properly mourn the unexpected death of his father.”

He claimed he was not himself. He said a “forced representation” like this would have an “absurd result” and argued the court does not have the power to force a lawyer to represent someone. Aldana said Utah's rules for lawyers required him to withdraw his representation if his “mental competency compromises the representation.”

Applications for fee reduction

Lund had previously rejected a request by Barlow's lawyers to reduce the charge back to manslaughter instead of murder, citing “vindictive prosecution” and Utah's constitutional equal protection under the law.

Recently, the defense asked Lund to dismiss the case because of the prosecution's “loss of evidence.” Flowerday claimed in the motion that there was a “reasonable probability” that evidence found on the road would have shown that Barlow attempted to stop or that there were other factors that led to his loss of control.

The motion argued that the Utah County Sheriff's Office did not send someone trained in homicide reconstruction to the scene until nine days after the accident and that the scene was not monitored.

“The crime scene was improperly treated, evidence on the street was not secured and exculpatory evidence was destroyed,” the motion states.

A lack of information about the boys' whereabouts before the accident, whether they could have been seen by Barlow and the exact cause of their injuries, the motion says, also impacts his case.

The motion said that if the judge concluded that the charge should not be dismissed due to loss of evidence, he should consider changing the murder charge to a manslaughter charge or excluding evidence favorable to the prosecution.

McBride, in his response to the motion, contradicted all of those moves, saying that since prosecutors never had any exculpatory evidence, they could not have destroyed it. He said there was evidence from three passengers in Barlow's car that he “never slowed down despite their pleas and calls for him to do so.”

McBride said the accident left the stables confused, horses spooked and people, including the cubs' mothers, searching for answers. “It was impossible to completely freeze the scene of the accident,” he said, and medical attention was the top priority. However, photos were taken that day and he said no skid marks were visible.

“Excluding evidence would do nothing to prevent police misconduct in this case because there was no police misconduct,” the prosecutor said.