Oregon biker gang leaders ask Ninth Circuit for new murder trial

The convictions stem from the 2015 torture and murder of an estranged member of the Gypsy Joker Outlaw Motorcycle Club.

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) — Two Oregon motorcycle club members serving life sentences for kidnapping, torturing and murdering an ousted member asked a Ninth Circuit panel on Friday for another chance at a trial, with one arguing his brain injury made him unable to form the intent required for a conviction.

“Our position is that the defense should have been given the opportunity to create reasonable doubt, particularly in a case where a defendant faces a mandatory life sentence that the district court said it would not have imposed had it had a choice,” argued Elizabeth Daily with the Federal Public Defender’s Office.

Daily represents Chad Erickson, a member of the Gypsy Joker Outlaw Motorcycle Club — a group the government has described as a ruthless and violent gang. Joining the appeal is Mark Dencklau, who served as the president of the club’s Portland chapter from 2003 until his arrest in 2018.

In 2015, the body of an estranged club member, Robert Huggins, was found badly beaten in a field in southwest Washington. Huggins, known in the club as “Bagger,” was kicked out after he was accused of stealing from the club and breaking its rules.

The government said Dencklau and other club members kidnapped Huggins and tortured him for several hours on a rural property owned by a former club member known as Dagwood. Erickson met club members at a gas station and showed them to the property, where some witnesses testified that he joined the attack.

Prosecutors said the murder was in revenge for Huggins reportedly tying up and robbing Dencklau’s girlfriend at gunpoint earlier in the summer.

Both Dencklau and Erickson were convicted by a jury in 2021 for charges of murder and kidnapping connected to racketeering and conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death. Dencklau was also convicted for his involvement in a racketeering conspiracy.

Before the Ninth Circuit, Erickson argued that the lower court wrongly excluded expert testimony about his cognitive deficit due to a traumatic brain injury he sustained from an IED explosion he experienced while deployed in Iraq. That exclusion hindered the jury from considering the theory that he was operating at a diminished capacity, Daily asserted.

“The jury could take in that information and it could find that, based on that information, he didn’t have knowledge about Huggins’ kidnapping and therefore when he went to the Arco gas station and led the others to Dagwood’s, he did not intend to facilitate the kidnapping,” Daily argued.

At trial in the lower court, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman, a George W. Bush appointee, determined that the relevance of the psychiatric evidence was “minimal at best” and there was a substantial possibility it would be misused to mislead or confuse the jury.

But Daily argued that the evidence would show that Erickson’s brain injury prevented him from putting the pieces together that Huggins had been violently abducted and that he was participating in the crime.

“The expert testimony would’ve supported a reasonable jury in thinking that Mr. Erickson’s brain did not reach those same deductions, inferences,” Daily said.

As for Dencklau, attorney Laura Graser argued that he wasn’t the one who conceived of the torture plan or issued the fatal blow to Huggins. Graser said that fell on a member of an associated club, Tiler Pribbernow, a “sadistic individual” whose history of extreme violence wasn’t permitted to be probed by the defense at trial.

Pribbernow agreed to cooperate with the government, allowing him to plead guilty to a single count of RICO conspiracy. He was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison in 2022.

“The jury could have come off with a false impression that he did an excellent job in the military and everything was fine until he got involved with the Gypsy Jokers and then became this violent sadist,” Graser said. “And that is misleading.”

She also argued that describing the club as a gang prejudiced the defendants.

But the government sees it differently. First, it argued that Mosman properly rejected Erickson’s bid to include expert testimony.

“This isn’t a fraud case about some little detail in a hundred-page document from three years ago,” said Justice Department attorney Sangita Rao. “Erickson knew the victim, Huggins.”

Rao said Erickson had a history with Huggins and had beaten him up the year prior, plus he knew that the club was on the hunt for Huggins.

“His memory problems didn’t prevent him from knowing what was going on,” Rao said.

She likewise rejected the notion that the situation was too fast-paced for Erickson to keep up with, arguing that it had been building for months, and the actual violence took place over hours.

“He knew about the violent gang ethos where disrespect on any kind … you got beat up when you were a Gypsy Joker,” Rao said.

Erickson argued that the jury’s deliberation, which took four days, and the questions the jury submitted to the court about when one must decide to join a conspiracy allowed the court to infer that the jury was considering Erickson’s mental state.

U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, noted there was a significant amount of testimony implicating Erickson.

“This was a brutal, horrible, nasty thing based upon the nature of this gang,” Smith said. “How do you get around the overwhelming evidence aspect of this?”

“Well, your honor, it was a club, not a gang,” Daily responded.

“I would say, I don’t want to join this club, let me just say,” Smith retorted.

Daily argued that the witness testimony didn’t corroborate that Erickson had participated in the torture.

“I think there are serious reasons why the jury may have had reasonable doubt, which is all that’s required here: reasonable doubt,” Daily said.

The Ninth Circuit panel — which also included Barack Obama-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Jacqueline Nguyen and U.S. Circuit Judge Holly Thomas, a Joe Biden appointee — did not indicate when it would rule.

Source: Courthouse News Service