UT: passing strange

In an ongoing murder case, this is a somewhat odd development, and not just because it's from Utah. The Desperate News reports:

Judge dismisses a lawyer in 1984 murder case
- But it's not one who was once arrested in witness tampering

Wade Garrett Maughan can keep only one of his current lawyers, a... judge decided Wednesday. Scott Williams won't belong to Maughan's defense team after Feb. 22. A new lead counsel will be appointed to work the case alongside Richard Mauro, who was arrested and briefly jailed in Spokane, Wash., on investigation of witness tampering in December.

Maughan is charged in 1st District Court with aggravated murder, a capital felony, from the May 1984 slaying of Bradley Newell Perry... Maughan was arrested in Spokane and charged in November...

When Mauro and an investigator... went to Spokane in December to interview people to whom Maughan had reportedly confessed the killing, they told the witnesses they didn't have to talk to anybody about the case. Mauro's attorney, Ken Brown, maintains that Mauro only meant the witnesses shouldn't talk to each other and possibly taint their upcoming testimonies...

Judge Ben Hadfield said there is "at least a reasonable possibility that either a serious violation of law or ethical standards occurred" when Mauro told witnesses they didn't have to talk to anybody shortly before police arrived. It was possibly a breach of ethics because Mauro isn't the attorney representing the witnesses...

Um, okay, but previously the prosecutor

...filed a motion to disqualify Maughan's attorneys, and in Hadfield's decision on the motion the judge said he doesn't believe Mauro committed wrongdoing. "On the contrary, this court's prior dealings with both defense counsel have all been positive," he said. "The court finds today only that there is a reasonable possibility that witness tampering occurred."

Hadfield said Maughan could keep one of his attorneys. Maughan chose to keep Mauro. "It's a very unusual and perplexing and strange ruling," Brown said afterward.