ROCKLAND, Maine — A 35-year-old Maine State Prison inmate has asked to represent himself on a charge that he brutally murdered another prisoner and was planning to kill a guard.
Richard Stahursky, also known as Richard Clement, had asked that his court-appointed attorney Christopher MacLean be removed as his lawyer. In his hand-written notice to the court, he claimed that he feared MacLean was trying to kill him.
The court approved MacLean’s withdrawal as Stahursky’s attorney and appointed attorney Philip Cohen last month to represent Stahursky. Stahursky said he would accept an attorney to help advise him on legal rules but that he would rather represent himself. That request is still pending.
MacLean issued a statement Tuesday in response to Stahursky’s claim.
“I have represented quite a few murder defendants over the years, but this is the first murder plot I have been implicated in. The state police have not been around to interview me yet, but as an experienced criminal defense attorney, I will know exactly how to handle the situation if they do,” he said in his statement.
There also is a pending motion before Knox County Superior Court to suppress statements Stahursky made to law enforcement officers
No hearing date has been scheduled on either Stahursky’s request to represent himself or the request to have his statements excluded from any trial.
Stahursky was indicted in April for intentional or knowing or depraved indifference murder, aggravated attempted murder and trafficking in prison contraband (shanks) for the Feb. 28 slaying of 37-year-old Micah Boland at the prison in Warren and plotting to kill a corrections officer. When he was apprehended for Boland’s death, he allegedly had another homemade knife and had labeled it as the weapon he was going to use to kill the corrections officer.
Stahursky confessed to the killing and claimed he wouldn’t plead not guilty by reason of insanity because he knew what he was doing, according to the affidavit filed in March by Maine State Police Detective Jason Andrews.
The affidavit released in March stated that Stahursky stabbed Boland 87 times and beat him in Boland’s cell. Stahursky claimed that he sought out Boland after conducting his own investigation within the prison to find out who made allegations that he improperly passed items from one prison pod to another living area. Stahursky said the false allegations cost him his job as a hallway worker.
Stahursky originally was sentenced in 2002 to nearly 20 years in prison for an armed robbery of a Mainway convenience store in Fort Fairfield. At the time of that robbery, he also was wanted by police in Connecticut for a larceny charge.
He was convicted of two separate stabbings of inmates with shanks prior to 2012 and for arson in 2004 for setting a fire at the prison.
Stahursky was sentenced in December 2012 to an additional eight years in prison for assaulting a guard. At that time, Stahursky asked Justice Jeffrey Hjelm to impose the maximum 10 years.