Matt Baker was successful in getting a new judge Friday but lost his bid to replace his court-appointed appellate attorney.

In an agreement that caught 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother by surprise, prosecutors Crawford Long and Susan Shafer and Baker’s attorney, Stan Schwieger, agreed to Baker’s request that Strother be recused from Friday’s hearing only and not hear Baker’s motion for a new appellate attorney.

No reflection on judge

Both sides said the recusal agreement was no reflection on Strother, who presided over Baker’s murder trial in January.

Matt Baker was ordered to cooperate with his appellate attorney, whom the judge described as “one of the very best appellate attorneys in this county.”
Duane A. Laverty/Tribune-Herald, file

They said they reached the agreement just to resolve the issue and to expedite the proceedings so the appeal of Baker’s murder conviction and 65-year prison term can move on to the next level — Waco’s 10th Court of Appeals.

After the recusal agreement was reached, retired State District Judge George Allen rejected Baker’s request to replace Schwieger with another court-appointed attorney.

The judge urged Baker to cooperate with Schwieger and described him as “one of the very best appellate attorneys in this county.”

Baker, 38, a former Baptist minister who was having an affair with a member of his church, was convicted of drugging and suffocating his wife, Kari, in April 2006 at their home in Hewitt.

Baker and Schwieger had a disagreement after Schwieger withdrew accusations in a motion for new trial that Baker’s trial attorneys, Guy James Gray and Harold Danford, provided Baker ineffective assistance of counsel. Strother denied Baker’s motion for new trial April 1.

Schwieger said Friday that those allegations, from a strategic standpoint, are best raised at another level of appeal.

“I do not agree with nor will I sponsor any type of argument that Judge Strother nor myself engaged in any type of action against Mr. Baker,” Schwieger said.

‘No conspiracy’

“At all times, I have acted in the best interest of Mr. Baker, and Judge Strother has acted in an impartial manner and ruled upon the merits of the issues as he felt they should be held. There is no conspiracy, there was no conspiracy. That is a fantasy.”

While Baker asked Strother to step down from his criminal case, he has not asked him to do so in the civil suit pending in Strother’s court to decide custody of Baker’s two daughters, Kensi and Grace.

Strother ordered Kari Baker’s parents, Linda and James Dulin, and Baker’s parents, Barbara and Oscar Baker, into mediation, which the couples attended Friday morning. Strother is waiting on a report on the progress of those talks, which is due next week.

The girls have lived with the Bakers in Kerrville for the past two years. The Bakers have asked that the custody dispute between the grandparents be transferred to Kerr County.

Strother has not ruled on that request.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

757-5737

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