Judge will announce next week if he’ll step down from Byron Scherf’s murder trial

Published 5:41 pm Thursday, October 6, 2011

EVERETT — A Snohomish County Superior Court judge declined to decide Thursday whether he’ll step down from overseeing the trial of a convicted rapist accused of killing Monroe corrections officer Jayme Biendl.

Judge Thomas Wynne told lawyers that he would issue a written decision in the next week or so about his future role in the case.

Byron Scherf and his defense lawyers late last month filed a motion asking Wynne to step down. The lawyers claimed that the long-time jurist appeared biased against the accused during an Aug. 3 hearing.

During that hearing Wynne declined to order Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe to reveal what specific information he considered when deciding to seek the death penalty for Scherf.

Defense attorneys Karen Halverson and Jon Scott claimed that Wynne ruled on issues not before him, including “vouching for the processes the prosecutor’s office and the prosecutor himself regarding issues that were not the subject of the defense motion.”

“It is our position some bias and prejudice has been shown,” Halverson said Thursday.

In a written declaration filed last month Scherf accused Wynne of being the prosecutor’s hip pocket.

Prosecutors argued that the defense team was “judge shopping” because Wynne hadn’t ruled in their favor. They asked Wynne to stay on the case.

Scherf, 53, didn’t address the judge during Thursday’s hearing. The inmate appears to have lost a noticeable amount weight since being booked into the Snohomish County Jail shortly after the Jan. 29 prison killing.

Scherf is accused of strangling Biendl with an amplifier cord in the chapel of the Washington State Reformatory. Scherf allegedly told investigators that Biendl put up a fight before he was able to wrap a cord around her neck.

Scherf was serving a life sentence without a chance of release for violent sex crimes against women.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.