Convicted murderer Matt Baker says he deserves a new trial because the poor performances of his trial attorneys led to his conviction for killing his wife.

In a two-page motion for a new trial filed Monday, accompanied by an affidavit from Baker, the former minister cites five areas in which he alleges that Kerrville attorneys Guy James Gray and Harold Danford were ineffective as Baker’s trial attorneys “as a matter of law.”

Baker, 38, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 65 years in January in the April 2006 suffocation and drugging death of his 31-year-old wife, Kari.

Matt Baker heads back to prison after a recent court hearing.
Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald, file

He told authorities that his wife was depressed and took an overdose of sleeping pills, leaving behind an unsigned, typewritten note to her two young daughters.

Gray, a former Jasper County district attorney, had asked to withdraw as Baker’s attorney before trial.

However, the judge denied his motion, and Baker later told the court that he wanted Gray and Danford to represent him.

“When you file a motion ahead of time asking to withdraw and attach an affidavit that says you think you can’t adequately represent him, you can pretty well anticipate a motion for new trial along these lines,” Gray said Monday.

The motion for a new trial, filed by Baker’s appellate attorney, Stan Schwieger, alleges that Baker’s attorneys failed to adequately communicate with him before trial and failed to consult with or call as a witness any experts in the fields of forensic pathology or toxicology.

The attorneys, according to the motion, also failed to adequately cross-examine witnesses, including the state’s experts in forensic pathology and toxicology, and Vanessa Bulls, who had an affair with Baker before his wife’s death and proved to be the state’s most important witness.

The motion also alleges that the attorneys failed to properly investigate the case and did not act in a “representative capacity” and “demonstrated a lack of loyalty” in comments made during and after the trial.

Judge Ralph Strother of Waco’s 19th State District Court, who presided over Baker’s trial, has set a hearing to consider the motion on April 1.

In his affidavit, Baker says that Gray told jurors in closing statements that he was “not particularly proud to be representing” Baker.

After trial, Gray told the media that Baker lied to him about having the affair with Bulls and, as an old prosecutor, “I guess my heart just wasn’t in it,” referring to representing Baker.

Baker also alleges that Gray and Danford did not talk to him several weeks before trial. They also should have caught Bulls’ testimony that Baker told her he got the Ambien sleeping medication he used to drug his wife from her mother’s medicine cabinet, he says.

In a civil deposition, Kari Baker’s mother, Linda Dulin, testified that she didn’t have a prescription for Ambien until after her daughter’s death, Baker claims.

“The information was in the possession of trial counsel before and during the time that Ms. Bulls was cross-examined,” Baker wrote in his affidavit.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

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