Hey Bob Bartle, have you tried to get a job with Ronnie Earle's Office? Lincoln Attorney seeks to subpoena witness from 1971 Omaha Black Panther bombing now living in Spokane Washington. This is yet another futile Edward Poindexter motion to set aside his early 70's conviction for murdering Omaha Police Officer Larry Minard. Judge considers jurisdiction in 1970 murder case Lincoln Journal StarAn appeal by Ed Poindexter, one of two men convicted in the 1970 bombing death of an Omaha police officer, could hinge on a narrow legal question — can Poindexter compel a resident of another state to provide evidence that could be key to the appeal? Douglas County District Judge Richard J. Spethman heard opposing views on the question at a hearing Friday. He will rule later. Attorneys for Poindexter want the judge to issue papers to a court in Spokane, Wash., asking that court to compel Spokane resident Gabriel Peak to provide the attorneys a voice sample. Poindexter contends Peak is the former Duane Peak, a key witness for the state in the 1971 trial of Poindexter and co-defendant David Rice. A Douglas County District Court jury convicted the men that May in the bombing death of Larry Minard, an Omaha police officer. Minard was killed Aug. 17, 1970, when he approached a suitcase booby-trapped with dynamite in a vacant house in north Omaha. He and other officers had been lured to the house by a 911 caller who claimed to have seen a woman being dragged inside. Peak, then a teenager, in trial testimony said he placed the call and he implicated Poindexter and Rice in the plot. Both men received life sentences, and Peak was ordered held in a juvenile detention facility. Peak apparently left the state shortly after his release in the early 1970s. His whereabouts where largely unknown until about a year ago, when a private investigator apparently located him in Spokane. Attorneys for Poindexter have said Gabriel Peak’s social security number and birth date match those of Duane Peak. Poindexter’s attorney, Bob Bartle of Lincoln, said in an interview this week the state’s case collapses without Peak’s testimony. Bartle wants to compare Peak’s voice now with the voice on the 911 tape from Aug. 17, 1970. Supporters of Poindexter and Rice said the voice on the tape was that of a man, and not a teenage boy. The state has said the issue of Peak’s testimony has already been weighed, and found to be credible, by courts considering Rice’s appeals. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed his conviction in 1972. Although District Judge Warren Urbom in an habeas corpus proceeding ruled the Police volated the defendant's 4th amendment rights in searching his residence and seizing explosives, SCOTUS held that 4th amendment cases were not appealable on federal habeas corpus. Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, (1976). The 8th Circuit threw out other proceedings in 1991 and the Nebraska Supreme Court did the same in 1983. The Nebraska Supreme Court found that the state's failure to turn over a letter from the 911 witness and his voice tape for testing did not violate Brady v maryland. At the hearing Friday, Brent Bloom, chief deputy Douglas County Attorney, told Spethman the process Poindexter is attempting to use to get the voice sample is reserved for matters involving courts from different countries. “It’s an extremely unusual procedure ... only for service of process for someone in a foreign country,” Bloom said. Bartle said the state of Nebraska’s rules of discovery permitted the procedure. He also rejected Bloom’s claim that the motion should be denied because Peak’s credibility has already been considered by courts. Bartle said Poindexter was not a party to the earlier cases, brought by Rice’s attorneys. Spethman did not say how soon he would rule on the motion.