John Barce’s Murderer Appeals Verdict

John Barce was a Benton County attorney. Lloyd Lichti, who was apparently mad at Barce for his role in preparing the will of Lichti’s father, kidnapped Barce leading to his death. Lichti was convicted of felony murder, robbery, theft, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of criminal confinement.

Lichti appealed the verdict. The court of appeals upheld the verdict. One of Lichti’s complaints was that two jurors were removed and replaced with alternates when the jurors told the trial court that they could not deliberate on Sunday because of their religious beliefs. The Court of Appeals held that replacing the jurors with alternates was within the trial court’s discretion and the trial court articulated sound reasons for replacing the jurors. Lichti also complains that the evidence didn’t support the verdict inasmuch as the precise nature of Barce’s death was not proven. The court of appeals wrote:

Here, the evidence is overwhelming that Lichti’s conduct contributed to John’s death in a reasonably foreseeable manner. By Lichti’s own admission, he kidnapped John, an elderly man with heart problems, bound his arms and legs with duct tape, forced him to record a ransom message to his wife of over forty years, and that at some point while John was Lichti’s captive, he “just died.” Tr. p. 975-76. Because Lichti dumped John’s body in a cornfield and left it there to decompose for six weeks, it was impossible to determine a precise cause of death. But the evidence shows that Lichti’s act of kidnapping John set in motion the series of events resulting in John’s death and that such a result was reasonably foreseeable. The State does not need to show a precise cause of death to sustain a conviction for felony murder, and here it has proffered more than sufficient evidence to sustain Lichti’s felony murder conviction. The jury was well within its province to convict Lichti on this count.

The Court of appeals goes on to dismiss Lichti’s claim that his confession was improperly admitted, dismiss Lichti’s claim that certain evidence was improperly excluded, and held that Lichti’s 65 year sentence was proper.

A word of advice — don’t expect a lot of sympathy from the legal system if you go around kidnapping lawyers; particularly a lawyer who is the father of not one, but two area prosecutors.