Triple-murder suspect raises concerns over new counsel

Claims of potential conflicts of interest by Brent Ward Luyster over his new court-appointed counsel has once again delayed setting trial dates in his triple-homicide and attempted jail escape case.

Luyster, 35 — a known white supremacist — was back in Clark County Superior Court on Wednesday morning with his new lawyer to schedule his trial, which prosecutors had hoped to go forward with this summer.

He is accused of fatally shooting three people and injuring a fourth at a Woodland home over the summer and trying to escape from the Clark County Jail the night of Feb. 12 through a broken cell window. The alleged attempt was interrupted by a corrections deputy conducting a routine perimeter check of the jail.

However, Luyster expressed concerns after Jeff Barrar of Vancouver Defenders was appointed to represent him. He said Barrar previously represented him in a 1998 case and a co-defendant, Jeremiah Prueitt, in a 2005 case involving a racially motivated attack on a black man in Vancouver’s Rose Village, according to Columbian archives.

Luyster said he doesn’t think Barrar can represent him and asked that his previous attorneys, Bob Yoseph and Ed Dunkerly, be put back on the case. Both withdrew as his counsel during arraignment Monday after Judge Robert Lewis ruled only one could stay on, in light of the prosecution’s decision not to pursue the death penalty.

Lewis told Luyster that he would have kept one of the attorneys on the case if they hadn’t both stepped down after his ruling.

Barrar said he doesn’t believe there are any conflicts of interest but asked the court for a day to look into everything.

Lewis agreed that there doesn’t appear to be any conflicts of interest based on the information before him but granted the set-over. Luyster will be back in court this morning.

After the hearing, a family member of one of the triple-homicide victims approached Barrar and said he represented her in a prior matter. She, too, voiced concerns over a potential conflict of interest.