Second defendant in Juggalo battle-ax case goes to trial

By melinda Rogers

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published Feb 01 2011 04:34PM

Updated Feb 1, 2011 11:17PM

Defense attorneys for a man accused of stabbing a 17-year-old boy while his friend assaulted the same boy with a medieval battle ax 2 1/2 years ago told a jury on Tuesday the pair never intended to kill their victim.

During opening arguments at the trial of Cody Jesse Augustine in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court, attorney Brittany Brown said her client only intended to scare Justin Ennis when he stabbed him approximately five times outside Ennis’ Kearns home.

Augustine believed Ennis had passed on a sexually transmitted disease to a girl that Augustine later slept with.

Prosecutors waived an opening statement but will counter Augustine had told friends he planned to kill whoever gave him the STD. Augustine, 23, is charged with first-degree felony attempted murder with injury and faces three years to life in prison if convicted.

Augustine went to Ennis’ house on July 29, 2008, after a night of drinking with his friend Scott Stapley, where the two men and their girlfriends discussed the possibility that Augustine had contracted an STD from his girlfriend, Stacy Kennedy, Brown said.

Kennedy told Augustine that the only person she could have received a disease from was Ennis, Brown said. Following an episode of painful urination, Augustine became angry and he and Stapley hatched a plan to go over to Ennis’ house to yell at him about the STD.

That’s when things got out of control, Brown said, and Stapley wielded a four-bladed warrior ax with a spiky ball attached as Ennis fought to escape. Augustine then stabbed Ennis several times with a knife — but only because he possibly believed blood at the scene belonged to Stapley, and he sought to defend his friend, she said. Brown suggested Augustine is guilty of assault but not attempted murder.

"He’s mad. He’s frustrated he contracted an STD. His mind starts to reel — what if I have to deal with this for the rest of my life? What if I’m sterile?" Brown told the jury.

"The plan was for Cody to give (Ennis) harsh words and a black eye. At no time did he intend to kill him."

Prosecutors waived an opening statement on Tuesday and proceeded to call witnesses, including Ennis, now 20. Ennis removed his shirt in the courtroom to show jurors the scars that remain from the battle ax and knife attack. He spent five days in the hospital and suffered an 8-inch cut to his neck, a 10 1/2 -inch cut in his left pectoral muscle and smaller cuts on his shoulder and hands, he said.

Ennis testified he was lured from his house by a series of text messages from his attackers, who posed as Kennedy, his ex-girlfriend. Ennis said he went outside about 4:30 a.m. believing he was meeting Stacy for "a booty call" after she wrote him a message stating, "Where are you fool? Let’s bang."

Slightly leery of the message since Kennedy usually didn’t speak in those terms, Ennis still decided to go outside, he said, despite thinking Kennedy was "being weird" with her text messages.

Ennis said Augustine then charged at him, screaming, and the two scuffled near Ennis’ house. Stapley then joined the attack, and Ennis was stabbed with the battle ax and knife moments later.

He managed to return to his parents’ house, where his dad put him in a bathtub until paramedics could arrive. A trail of blood marked Ennis’ path through the house, and he held a T-shirt to his neck wound to try to stop the bleeding, he testified.

Augustine’s case has taken more than two years to reach trial after becoming tangled up in appeals courts over an argument about whether a judge should have declared him indigent after he was charged, therefore entitling him to a public defender. He lost that appeal and is being represented by private counsel.

Stapley, now 24, was convicted by a 3rd District Court jury in January 2009 of first-degree felony attempted murder for his part in attacking Ennis and ordered to serve three years to life in prison. He is scheduled for a parole hearing in February 2012, according to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.

 

Augustine’s defense attorneys claimed on Tuesday that Stapley concocted the plan to assault Ennis. But during Stapley’s trial two years ago, his attorneys said the assault was Augustine’s idea.

Stapley took the stand at his own trial and testified he bought the ax for about $25 from Pipe Dream Gifts, a store in Salt Lake City, and that the two meant to "hurt" Ennis but not kill him.

Police have said Stapley and Augustine are members of the Juggalos, fans of the Insane Clown Posse rap group. Juggalos and their female counterparts, Juggalettes, are classified as a gang by Utah law enforcement.

A "hatchet man" necklace belonging to Stapley that was found at the crime scene and an emblem on his vehicle are linked to the Juggalos, police said.