Jury trial expected to last 10 days and call 37 witnesses
Pre-selection for the jury in the Jeffrey Adams murder trial began Monday via Zoom call in Hamilton County District Court, with actual jury selection and the trial set to begin this coming Monday. The 48-year-old Adams is charged with first degree premeditated murder in the death of his wife, Angela, in the couple’s Marquette home on Feb. 26, 2023. The trial is scheduled to take 10 days.
Thirty-seven individuals remain on the active witness list to testify either on behalf of the defense or the prosecution in the trial, including both of Adams’s ex-wives. They testified as prosecution witnesses at a hearing last fall regarding abuse they had suffered at Adams’s hands during their relationships with him.
The trial is set for June 10-21 and will take place in the district courtroom on the third floor of the courthouse.
Before the trial begins on Monday morning, Judge Christina M. Marroquin is expected to hear a motion in lemine filed by defense attorney Matthew McDonald requesting the court to prohibit any offer of evidence or testimony at trial regarding allegations that Angela Adams had kept a knife under her side of the bed.
The motion states that the victim’s son, Chase Dettmer, had told law enforcement on March 1, 2023 that someone had found a knife or knives under Angela’s side of the bed, but they were not turned over to law enforcement and there was no blood found on them.
The trial comes just two months after the judge denied a motion from McDonald asking that the trial be moved out of Hamilton County. The defense had requested in a March 7 change of venue motion that the trial be moved to Saunders County “or another county a substantial distance from Hamilton County using jurors from a county other than Hamilton County for defendant’s trial.”
McDonald alleged in the motion that “Pretrial publicity and misconduct by an unknown person makes it impossible to secure a fair and impartial jury in Hamilton County... There has been numerous news articles and television reports regarding the case in the local media that reaches Hamilton county including updates on the Hamilton county Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.”
Judge Marroquin did not give any rationale for denying the request following a hearing held in Saunders County on March 26. At that time she also denied a motion in limine filed by McDonald asking that a snapshot of a text message on the defendant’s phone “that is not complete” also be excluded from being presented as evidence in Adams’s trial.
Adams was initially charged with 2nd degree murder after he turned himself in at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office the day after his wife’s death. A trial on those charges was set to begin on July 7 and later was pushed back to Nov. 6, 2023, however, following a hearing on Aug. 21 of last year, County Court Judge C. Jo Petersen found there was sufficient evidence for a charge of 1st degree premeditated murder and entered an order on Aug. 24 allowing the upgrade of charges. The state is expected to allege that Adams caused his wife’s death by strangulation.
Adams has been housed in the Hamilton County Jail since his arrest on a bond set at 10 percent of $1 million.