Deseret News: Family of Man Charged with Killing Ogden Officer Asks for Help to Pay for Defense

Regardless of how you may feel about the merits of the case, O Gentle Ones, fair-minded lumpencitizens who'd like to level the playing field a little bit just might want to navigate on over to Mr. Stewart's support website and cough up a few bucks

The Deseret News is front and center in reporting on the 1/4/12 Ogden Shootout Story again this morning, with an Emily Morgan writeup, delivering the news that the family of Defendant Matthew Stewart has established a defense support and informational website seeking donations to be applied to Mr. Stewart's defense, among other things. Here's the lede:

OGDEN — The family of a man charged with killing an Ogden police officer is asking for help in raising $70,000 that they feel is needed to mount a defense.

The family of Matthew David Stewart has set up a website, www.helpmatthewstewart.org, where they are asking for donations. On the website, they say prosecutors are refusing to turn evidence over to Matthew Stewart's defense attorney.

Read the full D-News story here:

• Family of man charged with killing Ogden officer asks for help to pay for defense

The Standard-Examiner also carries a similar story this morning, too:

• Website seeks to raise funds for Stewart defense

As regular Weber County Forum readers are already aware, WCF "broke" this story earlier this week; but it's nice to see the Utah print media however belatedly following suit.

Remember folks, according to yesterdays D-News story, Stewart's defense team is already operating at a mind-numbing disadvantage in this matter:

Richards is also asking that private investigator Kris Cantil be appointed to the case, pointing out that prosecutors have 52 investigating police officers, two private county attorney investigators, state and county crime scene investigators and several other agencies "providing investigation of this case for prosecution and potential execution of Matthew Stewart."

Prosecutors would not appoint Cantil, saying instead that they would only appoint an investigator to assist their "selected defense indigent counsel" and decided on Carl Hurst.

Regardless of how you may feel about the merits of the case, O Gentle Ones, fair-minded lumpencitizens who'd like to help level the playing field a little bit just might want to navigate on over to Mr. Stewart's support website and cough up a few bucks... or so it seems to us.

For those folks who'd like to know a little more about Mr. Stewart's website, and the possible implications and repurcussions of sending a generous donation, please check this out:

• About the cause

Comments, anyone?