A judge is giving the man convicted of orchestrating a near-fatal stabbing in Allenstown’s Bear Brook State Park in 2014 the chance to state his case for a new trial at a hearing later this summer.
Superior Court Judge Diane Nicolosi will hear this September from attorneys representing Kyle Buffum about why he believes he did not have a fair trial in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord. More than three years ago, a jury rejected Buffum’s insanity defense and unanimously found him guilty of accomplice to attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and criminal solicitation.
Buffum, 27, of Barnstead filed his new trial request this past February from the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, where he is serving a sentence of 35 years to life in the planned attack that seriously injured Andrea Halvorsen.
In his motion, Buffum maintains his trial attorney, Ted Barnes, committed errors that affected the outcome of the case. For example, Buffum says Barnes never advised him of his right to waive indictment, did not educate him about the maximum penalties he could face if convicted at trial, did not adequately pursue cellphone evidence, and did not thoroughly cross-examine state witnesses.
County prosecutors have opposed the motion, saying the claims made by Buffum are not grounds for a new trial.
Buffum’s new trial request comes more than a year after the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the sentence handed down by Nicolosi.
A three-judge panel of Superior Court judges had also previously reviewed the disposition and raised no red flags.
At trial, Buffum conceded his role in the attack but argued that he had been driven to act by mental illness. Barnes told jurors that Buffum had long harbored depressive thoughts and that he essentially flew off the handle in late 2013, descending into “paranoia, irrationality and obsession.”
Prosecutors said there was no evidence to support those claims. They insisted instead that Buffum had carefully coerced his 18-year-old girlfriend, Samantha Heath, to kill her friend, Halvorsen, over several months through January 2014.
“It’s easy to look at this case and think, this is crazy,” Assistant County Attorney Joe Cherniske said during the 2016 trial’s closing arguments. “Two 20-year-old kids who believed they had to kill a person to be happy and then planned it in their text messages to each other.
“But committing a crime that doesn’t make sense to everyone in this room doesn’t make him criminally insane.”
Halvorsen was stabbed more than 20 times in her chest and midsection in Bear Brook State Park.
Heath pleaded guilty in 2015 to attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, though with the possibility of a reduction. She testified at Buffum’s trial.
In the years since Buffum’s trial, Nicolosi was reassigned to the northern division of Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester. She will return to Concord’s superior court to preside over the motions hearing, which is scheduled for Sep.6.