TOPEKA, Kan. – The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and sentence for a 30-year-old Hutchinson man who was ordered to prison for 40-years for his involvement in the murder of Joshua Haines.
Anthony Waller was given the sentence by Judge Tim Chambers back in April of 2011, after he denied the judgment of acquittal and a motion for a new trial by defense attorney Carl Maughn.
Waller was sentenced to 20-years for felony murder and 20 plus years for aggravated kidnapping. He had been found “not guilty” of aggravated robbery.
Waller argued on appeal that the court erred when they didn’t include several lesser included offenses on the three charges or by failing to give a self defense instruction. He also argued that the court erred when they failed to grant his motion for a mistrial and that the cumulative trial error denied him a fair trial. He also maintains the court erred when they using his criminal history from when he was a juvenile to determine his criminal history score. He believes the errors violate the prohibition against double jeopardy.
The high court rejected his arguments saying that aggravated kidnapping is a dangerous felony and he could be convicted and sentenced to felony murder and an underlying felony supporting the felony murder charge without it being double jeopardy, in this case the kidnapping charge. The court denied his appeal and his conviction and sentence was affirmed by the court.
The case centers on Haines being beaten and strangled in an apartment at 12th & Severance, and his body placed in his vehicle. An autopsy revealed that Haines had been struck approximately 70-times and strangled. Waller then bound Haines with duct tape and video game cords before dragging his body out of the apartment. The victim was stuffed into the passenger side of his car and the vehicle was abandoned a few blocks away. All this occurring on April 10, 2010. Waller was upset because he believed Haines had burglarized his apartment weeks earlier.
The state believes Waller masterminded the idea of tricking Haines, by luring him to a co-defendants apartment telling him they wanted to buy drugs, but once inside the dark apartment, he along with 32-year-old Jose Delacruz and 36-year-old Vasie Coons then ambushed Haines, beat him and Waller reportedly strangled him to death.
Coons entered pleas to aggravated robbery, possession of cocaine, methamphetamine, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana while the murder charge against him was dropped. He’s serving a 12-year sentence.
The third co-defendant in the case, Jose Delacruz was found not guilty of murder, but was convicted of aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to nearly 7-years for the robbery conviction, He was also given another 9-years for a conviction of contempt of court for refusing to testify at the Waller murder trial.