By Steve Marroni
The Evening Sun
HANOVER, Pa. — The man accused of shooting and killing a wildlife conservation officer admitted his actions to the police when he was arrested in November.
But the attorney representing Christopher L. Johnson, 28, of Carroll Valley, is asking the court to suppress the alleged confession, saying he was not coherent enough to make such statements to the police.
Several state troopers and medical personnel testified in a suppression hearing in Adams County Court Tuesday in the death-penalty homicide case against Johnson.
Johnson’s attorney, Chief Public Defender Kristin Rice, argued that Johnson was not in proper condition to make statements to the police when he was arrested Nov. 12 after the killing of Wildlife Conservation Officer David L. Grove, 31, of Fairfield.
After a night-long manhunt, Rice said Johnson had lost a significant quantity of blood from a gunshot wound to his right hip, and was dehydrated and hypothermic. She said he was in pain when talking to police, and was temporarily denied morphine during questioning.
District Attorney Shawn Wagner, however, presented testimony from several witnesses whom all described Johnson as coherent and cooperative while he was questioned by police. And police say they did not deny Johnson painkillers; they just wanted a clear, coherent confession.
More testimony will be presented Aug. 19 before Judge Michael A. George makes a decision on whether or not to allow the confession to be part of the evidence presented to a jury.
In addition to the motion to suppress evidence, the judge will also consider Rice’s motion for a change of venue or change of venire, which would either move the case outside of Adams County, or bring a jury in from another county. Rice previously said the amount of media coverage Johnson’s case has received will make it difficult to find an impartial jury in Adams County.
According to court documents, on Nov. 11, Johnson and Ryan Laumann, 19, of Fairfield were spotting deer, and were pulled over on Schriver Road by Grove after allegedly illegally shooting a deer.
Johnson, a convicted felon prohibited from carrying firearms, allegedly told his passenger he did not want to go to jail for having the gun.
He got out of his truck, and Johnson and Grove exchanged fire, according to court documents.
Grove was later pronounced dead at the scene. Johnson, who had been shot in the right hip, fled, dropping Laumann off along the way, and leading authorities on a night-long manhunt.
Trooper Neal Navitsky of the Pennsylvania State Police Troop H in York testified Tuesday that he and other officers went the next morning to a hunting camp owned by Johnson’s family, off Orrtanna Road.
He got word that Johnson was approaching on the trail leading from Orrtanna Road back to the cabin, so he and the troopers came back down the trail, Navitsky testified, and saw other officers arresting Johnson.
Navitsky testified he read Johnson the Miranda warning, and said Johnson acknowledged he understood his rights. Navitsky and Adams County detective Francis Donnelly questioned him.
“I asked him what events brought us here,” Navitsky testified. “At that point, he responded by saying he made some bad decisions.”
According to testimony, Donnelly then asked Johnson if he knew he had shot an officer, and Johnson allegedly said, “I thought he was only a game warden.”
“Is it fair to say he made statements admitting to his involvement in the shooting of Officer Grove?” Wagner asked Navitsky on the stand, to which the trooper answered, “Yes.”
Johnson was loaded into an ambulance to be transported to York Hospital for treatment, according to testimony. Three EMTs and a nurse who treated him at the hospital all testified that Johnson was coherent, and showed no signs of having lost a significant quantity of blood, or of being dehydrated or hypothermic.
Navitsky then testified that he brought a voice recorder on board the ambulance, and interviewed Johnson again about his previous confession.
As EMTs were about to administer morphine for Johnson’s pain, Navitsky asked if he could talk to Johnson before the morphine was given, according to testimony.
EMT Robin Baughman of Medic 28 of Gettysburg Hospital testified he said Navitsky could have five minutes because it would take that long to get permission from the hospital, and to administer the painkiller.
Rice asked Navitsky if he wanted the painkiller to be held off while he questioned Johnson again, but Navitsky said he was only asking the EMTs because he was unsure what effect the drug would have on Johnson’s ability to answer questions, adding he has no authority to stop them from taking care of a patient.
Also on Tuesday, Wagner filed an amendment with the court to add a fourth aggravating circumstance to the first-degree murder charge against Johnson. Pennsylvania has a list of 18 aggravating circumstances, and if a jury finds one of those circumstances to be present when a defendant is found guilty of murder in the first degree, the death penalty can be imposed.
Wagner said he could not yet share what that fourth circumstance is. At Johnson’s arraignment in January, Wagner filed motion that he is seeking the death penalty on three aggravating circumstances: the killing of a potential witness to a felony, the killing of a witness while in perpetration of a felony and the killing of a law-enforcement officer in the line of duty.
Johnson faces charges of murder in the first and third degrees, persons not to possess firearms, flight to avoid apprehension, firearms not to be carried without a license, possessing an instrument of crime, resisting or interfering with an officer, unlawful use of lights while hunting and unlawful killing or taking of big game.
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