Judge orders change of venue in wild horse shooting

Scott Sonner

Tuesday, April 18, 2000 | 5:25 a.m.

VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. - A judge ordered a rare change of venue in the case of a wild horse shooting, saying dramatic media coverage of the slaughter of 33 mustangs has stacked tiny Storey County against the three defendants.

"I am unable to conclude I can try this case in Storey County," First District Judge Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

"Pressure exists in this county for the return of a particular kind of verdict," he said.

The two ex-Marines and a former high school buddy once accused of shooting at least 28 horses with high-powered rifles are now charged in the death of only a single mustang.

Griffin ruled last month there wasn't enough evidence to support the more than two dozen initial charges. The remaining gross misdemeanor charge carries a penalty of up to one year in the county jail and a $2,000 fine.

Griffin said he intends to move the trial to Carson City, Reno or Las Vegas where it will be easier to find jurors less familiar with the horse slayings than the 3,700 residents of Storey County.

The judge said he was aware of only one previous time that a change of venue had been ordered in a criminal trial in Nevada.

The judge said Tuesday that publicity surrounding the mass killing in December 1998 had become the "talk of the town" and that familiarity with the case among prospective jurors was unprecedented in his 20 years on the bench.

Lawyers on both sides agreed.

"I have never in all my jury trials had a judge ask, 'Has anyone heard of the case?' And the entire panel raises its hands," said Sharon Claassen, Storey County's deputy district attorney.

"It just doesn't happen," she said.

The shooting of the horses in the hills near Reno drew national outrage in the days after Christmas 1998 and led to the discharge of the two former Marines, Lance Cpls. Darien Brock, 22, and Scott Brendle, 23.

The two attended Wooster High School in Reno with the third defendant, Anthony Merlino, 21. The three were arrested in January 1999 after a relative of a sheriff's employee overheard one talking at a party.

They eventually admitted they had been in the same canyon during the days in question but had played a role in the death of only one horse.

Brendle said he shot one, and Merlino said when he came across one that had been shot, he put it out of its misery.

By all accounts, the 33 horses died horrible deaths, shot multiple times, some through the heart, one between the eyes.

"This was a massacre," Claassen said during the preliminary hearing in September.

Several of the mustangs thrashed on the ground or wandered wounded for days before they died or were chased down and destroyed by sheriff's deputies.

Media coverage at the time of the arrests included neighbors describing Merlino as an overly zealous hunter. One former neighbor told reporters that Merlino used to blast birds with a shotgun in his front yard and once gutted a deer on his living room carpet.

Judge Griffin said Tuesday that because of extensive pretrial publicity, all but three of the 73 prospective jurors knew something about the case.

More than a dozen were excused during four hours of jury selection Monday because they had made up their minds that the three men were guilty.

One woman said, "I'd like to put them out in a field and take pot shots at them."

"Almost no one I have questioned so far has used moderately neutral language," Griffin said Tuesday. "It's all very strong words - catastrophe, slaughter, outrageous conduct.

"The facts of this case are by definition sensational," he said.

"It's a dramatic event ... Most of the stories I've seen on TV start out with pictures of dead horses."

Changes of venue are so rare in Nevada that the state Supreme Court doesn't keep track of them, a clerk said Tuesday.

Griffin said that "in my heart" he believed he eventually could seat an impartial jury. But he said he knew an appeal of a refusal to grant the venue change was likely to prevail because the county had become so saturated with news of the case.

Defense lawyers said the change of venue was critical.

"This enables us to get a fair trial," said Marc Picker, Brock's lawyer.