State of Utah vs Mark Gudmundsen

(Part 2 of a series. In Part 1, Mark Gudmundsen shot and killed Alexander Norte in 1935 near Parowan. See the Oct 2 SJR or sjrnews.com.)
A Coroner’s jury convened the next day to review the facts to determine if a murder trial of Gudmundsen was justified.
On the stand, Gudmundsen admitted to killing Norte, claiming self-defense. After recounting his firing of the unheeded warning shots to no effect, he said, “If I had had a little more nerve, I would have waited, but I thought it meant one or the other of us and I was afraid of him, so I drew a fine bead and shot.”
Witnesses testified that three weeks earlier, the Adams boys, referring to Gudmundsen’s uncles, asked the Sheriff to help keep the peace. That request resulted in Sheriff Carpenter being onsite when the sheep arrived from spending the summer in the high country. Present were members of the Adams family, including Gudmundsen, along with Sheriff Carpenter, and Alex Norte.
Many potential solutions were discussed. Norte rejected the Adams offer to buy some or all of Norte’s land or to purchase a right of way with cash or a gift of land. Sheriff Carpenter suggested creating a right of way by court order.
Norte’s reaction to that final suggestion gave a peek into his troubled mind, “Court order or no court order, I’ll kill those Irishmen if they get on my land; I’ll get as many of them as I can and then put a bullet in my own head; I have nothing to live for; they will lose more than I.”
He then said that he wouldn’t sell any land to the “Irishmen”, adding “if they didn’t stay off his land, and off the public domain adjoining him in one direction, the boundaries of which he had arbitrarily fixed, there would be a lot of little orphan Mormons over in Parowan.”
Gudmundsen testified that it was only after hearing those words that he began carrying a gun as means of protection whenever he took the sheep to water.
Several witnesses corroborated his account. Contrary to expectations, no firearm was found on Norte’s body. But in view of the constant threats to the family, no reasonable person would have bet his life on Norte not being armed. Hence, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide”.
Sentiment among the sheriff, his deputies, and the county attorney was that no jury would convict Gudmundsen in a murder trial. The County Attorney, in stronger language, said “...any conviction would be a miscarriage of justice and pursuing one would be a misuse of county funds.”
While the district attorney may have agreed with the sheriff and county attorney, he said a trial by jury would place both in a better light with the public, and ordered charges to be brought.
The defendant was charged and taken into custody with bail set at $15,000. Townspeople immediately posted twice that amount allowing Mark freedom while awaiting trial. A preliminary hearing was set for January 3, 1936.
At the three-day hearing before Cedar City Justice Court Judge A. H. Rollo, the same facts that emerged in the coroner’s inquiry were presented, only in greater detail and supported by even more witnesses.
The State of Utah vs. Mark Gudmundsen ended that day with no recommendation for a murder trial. Mark Gudmundsen was free.
The necessary details of this story were provided by the Parowan Times and Salt Lake Telegraph.
A complete understanding of this case is impossible without knowing more about the two individuals involved. Those accounts will be covered next.