Man who killed Boise State student could go back to Death Row

Darrell Payne, condemned to death in 2002 for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Samantha Maher two years earlier, had his death sentence overturned by the Idaho Supreme Court in 2008 over errors in his original sentencing hearing.

Testimony began Friday in a new sentencing hearing.

"This case is about utter disregard for human life. (Payne) is a cold-blooded, pitiless slayer who robbed Samantha of her dreams and her life," Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Roger Bourne told a jury Friday during opening arguments. "It's a case about a man who developed a taste for rape, a rapist who developed a taste for murder."

"For what he did to Samantha, he deserves the death penalty."

Bourne also told the jury how Payne raped a Boise woman in her apartment and then two 14-year-old girls on the Greenbelt in the summer of 2000 - just days before he abducted Maher from Julia Davis Park on her way to BSU on July 6, 2000.

Defense attorney Rob Chastain didn't dispute that Payne's three life sentences, without the possibility of parole, were not earned. What he asked the jury to do was consider if a death sentence makes anything better.

"(Payne's) crimes are cowardly É and we not offering any excuse for them," Chastain said. "Darrell Payne will die in prison one way or another and nothing that happens here will change that. The crimes have been dealt with É there is no reason to put the man to death."

Under Idaho's current death penalty law, a jury, not a judge, must decide whether Payne's crimes meet the aggravating factors necessary to sentence him to death. Since Fourth District Judge Thomas Neville sentenced Payne to death in 2003, a new jury had to be selected for the new hearing.

Neville and lawyers on both sides spent more than two weeks picking the new jury, comprised of 11 women and four men (three of those jurors are alternates). Testimony, which began Friday, could last up to two weeks before the jury has to make their ultimate decision.

Neville's courtroom was packed to capacity Friday morning, filled with Maher's family and friends. Some quiet sniffles were heard when Maher's parents, Paul and Shirley Blomberg, testified about their frantic search for Samantha when went missing in early July 2000.

Payne, dressed in a yellow Ada County Jail jumpsuit, with his legs bound with restraints, appeared calm and relaxed at the defense table, talking to defense attorneys Chastain and Deb Kristal, for most of the hearing. He stared straight ahead during the Blomberg's testimony.

The Idaho Supreme Court overturned Payne's death penalty in December 2008, saying Neville erred when he allowed Maher's family and friends to make victim impact statements during the sentencing that referred to Payne's character.

Patrick Orr: 373-6619