Former Baptist minister Matt Baker, convicted last week in the April 2006 murder of his wife, will contest his conviction, and Waco attorney Stan Schwieger will handle the appeal.

Baker’s trial attorneys, Guy James Gray and Harold Danford, withdrew from representing Baker on Thursday, shortly after a 19th State District Court jury returned a 65-year sentence for the 38-year-old Baker.

Danford filed a notice of appeal with Judge Ralph Strother on Monday afternoon, and Strother appointed Schwieger at the county’s expense to represent Baker on his direct appeal to Waco’s 10th Court of Appeals.

Matt Baker walks into court, hands shackled to his waist, before his sentencing last week for his murder conviction.
Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald

Murder conviction

The jury convicted Baker of drugging his wife, Kari Baker, with sleeping pills and then suffocating her with a pillow while she was handcuffed to the bed and their two daughters lay sleeping down the hall.

Schwieger said Monday that he has 30 days from the date of sentencing should he and Baker decide to file a motion for a new trial with Strother’s court. If not, he will file an appeal with the three judges of the 10th Court of Appeals.

“I don’t know anything about the case,” Schwieger said. “I will have to take some time to make a standard review of the record and see what is there,” he said.

After Baker’s trial, Gray surprised the media — and angered many in the local defense bar — with comments that indicated that he lost faith in Baker before the trial started after learning that Baker lied to him about having an affair with Vanessa Bulls. He also said he probably could have done a better job of representing Baker.

“I just didn’t have the heart for it,” said Gray, who served 25 years as the Jasper County district attorney before moving to Kerrville several years ago.

Despite Gray’s unusual post-trial comments, Schwieger said they likely won’t be fodder for his appeal.

“If his comments constitute violations of the professional rules of conduct, that does not affect the appeal,” Schwieger said. “That has nothing to do with the trial itself. If client confidences were disclosed, or whatever, at that point, it has nothing to do with the appellate process.”

Schwieger said if any of Gray’s comments or actions constitute ineffective assistance of counsel, then the appellate timetable limits an attorney’s ability to adequately prepare those allegations for direct appeal. If those allegations are not prepared adequately and are unsuccessful, a defendant effectively is largely limited from advancing those claims later, Schwieger said.

Schwieger, past president of the McLennan County Criminal Lawyers’ Association, has practiced law for 18 years. He has handled a number of state and federal appeals, including the appeal of a federal death penalty case tried in Waco’s U.S. District Court and appeals from a number of murder trials from state district courts.

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

757-5737

Get more

Complete coverage of the Matt Baker story