ROCKLAND, Maine ― The attorneys for the Maine State Prison inmate accused of killing his cellmate last June are asking that the tentative May 2020 trial date be swapped for an earlier date.
Zachary Titus, 39, was charged with murder in January for the June 24, 2018, death of one of his cellmates, Dana Bartlett. Investigators say a fight over stolen cigarettes led to the strangulation death of Barlett in their shared cell at the Bolduc Correctional Facility in Warren.
For the first time since his arraignment in February, Titus appeared in court Tuesday morning for a status hearing.
Titus is being represented by attorneys Steven Peterson and Naomi Cohen, who said Tuesday that they would be ready to go to trial in a matter of months if it weren’t for state prosecutors having limited availability.
Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea, who is representing the state in the case with Assistant Attorney General Bud Ellis, said their trial schedules are full until May 2020 ― nearly two years from when the alleged crime took place.
Peterson said that because the case likely will not present many legal challenges, it would not take a year to prepare for the trial. Paterson asked Justice Bruce Mallonee to consider moving the trial date forward if the schedules of the prosecutors open up.
“It does seem to me that it will not take until next year to prepare for trial. But we do need prosecutors to be available,” Mallonee said.
Mallonee granted a motion from the defense for the state to surrender a video recording of an altercation that allegedly took place between Bartlett and Titus outside of their cell in the weeks before Barlett’s death. The defense is also seeking all recordings of interactions between Bartlett and Titus in 2018 and photos of Titus taken the day of Bartlett’s death.
Outside the courtroom Tuesday, Peterson said that Titus maintains his not guilty plea on the murder charge. Peterson said he and Cohen could “possibly” introduce a self-defense argument at trial, though that is just one of the defenses they are considering.
Titus and Bartlett shared a cell with two other inmates at the minimum security prison in Warren, which is commonly referred to as the prison farm.
According to a police affidavit filed earlier this year, both Titus and Bartlett told unidentified individuals in recorded phone calls that they got into a fight a couple of days before Bartlett’s death.
Leading up to his death, Bartlett was reportedly terrified of his cellmates, according to former inmates who spoke to the Bangor Daily News. They said Bartlett asked a guard multiple times to move him to another cell in the hours before he died. The guard allegedly refused to move him.
However, Maine Department of Corrections officials have maintained that an investigation found “no indication” that Bartlett asked to be removed from his cell because of safety concerns.
On the afternoon of June 24, Titus and Bartlett got into a fight over cigarettes according to the two other cellmates. One of the men said he witnessed Titus put Bartlett in a “sleeper hold” and the other told police when he returned to the cell from a smoke break that Bartlett was “lifeless” on the floor and Titus was trying to wake him up, according to the affidavit.
Both of the cellmates said they left the room after the altercation broke out. When they returned to an unresponsive Bartlett, Titus allegedly said that “[Bartlett] just came at me and I choked him out,” according to the affidavit.
An autopsy conducted the morning after Bartlett’s death concluded that the cause of death was strangulation and that the manner of death was a homicide.
Bartlett’s DNA was found on Titus’ shirt and wristwatch. No DNA from Bartlett was found on the two other cellmates.
A grand jury indicted Titus in January and he was arrested on Jan. 23 at the Maine State Prison, where he has been held since Bartlett’s death.
Titus, formerly of Thomaston, is serving a two-year sentence for theft, according to Maine Department of Corrections records. His scheduled release date on the theft conviction is in August 2020.