LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky man pardoned after a state homicide conviction but later convicted in federal court over the same deadly shooting should not get a new trial, a federal judge has recommended.

Attorneys for Patrick Baker, 46, filed a motion arguing his federal conviction and sentence should be set aside and he should get a new trial.

The motion argued that attorneys who represented Baker in his 2021 federal trial didn’t to an effective job, and that those attorneys did not properly investigate a claim that could have been used to seek dismissal of the indictment against him.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew A. Stinnett rejected Baker’s arguments in a decision released March 20, saying he hadn’t provided sufficient evidence to justify setting aside his conviction.

The recommendation goes to U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom for a decision on whether to adopt it and deny Baker a new trial.

Case began with 2014 shooting

Stinnett’s decision is the latest development in a case that started early one morning in May 2014, when two men posing as federal law enforcement officers kicked in the door at the home of a man named Donald Mills in Knox County.

Mills, 29, sold pain pills, and the men planned to steal drugs and money from him.

Mills’ wife, Charlene, later testified one man asked Mills “Where is the dope, and where is the money?” and took Mills to a back room in their home, where she heard several gunshots shortly after.

Other witnesses testified Baker later told them Mills pulled a gun, forcing Baker to shoot him before fleeing.

Mills bled to death.

A jury in state court convicted Baker in November 2017 on charges of reckless homicide, first-degree robbery, impersonating a police officer and tampering with evidence, and a judge sentenced him to 19 years in prison in December 2017.

Governor frees Baker

In December 2019, however, then-Gov. Matt Bevin commuted Baker’s sentence and pardoned him.

Bevin issued hundreds of pardons and commutations in the final days of his term after losing reelection to Gov. Andy Beshear, but some were more controversial than others — including his decision to free Baker.

The reason in that case was that members of Baker’s family held a political fundraiser for Bevin in 2018, raising $21,500.

Bevin, a Republican, denied that politics had anything to do with his decisions, but some lawmakers said the pardon for Baker raised an appearance of corruption.

The next major development came in May 2021, when a federal grand jury indicted Baker on a charge of murdering Mills while committing a drug crime.

Boom, the federal judge, turned away an argument that the new charge violated a rule against punishing someone twice for the same crime, ruling that different governments — Kentucky and the U.S. — could prosecute someone over the same conduct.

The charge in federal court also included different elements than the one Baker faced in state court.

Baker adamantly denied killing Mills, but jurors convicted him after about six hours of deliberation following a nine-day trial.

Lengthy federal sentence

Boom sentenced him to 42 years in prison but gave him credit for 30 months in state custody, leaving him with a sentence of 39 years and six months.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals later rejected a claim by Baker that there was not sufficient evidence to convict him.

Baker is serving his sentence at a federal prison in West Virginia, not scheduled for release until 2055.

Baker’s latest motion in federal district court is another avenue to try to get his conviction overturned. It has different arguments than his earlier federal appeal.

One arguments is that the attorneys who represented Baker in 2021 didn’t adequately look into a claim that the prosecution was vindictive, which could have been used in a request to dismiss the indictment.

Stinnet, however, said Baker “has not identified any specific evidence his counsel should have found or should have utilized in support of his claim of vindictive prosecution.”

“For all the Court knows, trial counsel did investigate and simply could not find additional evidence,” Stinnett wrote. “Without some specificity, the Court is unable to concur with Baker’s claim that his trial counsel’s performance was deficient.”

‘Zealously advocating’

The other argument Baker made was that his trial attorneys were so concerned about being held in contempt of court by Boom — which could have resulted in sanctions such as a fine or jail time — that they backed away from representing him as zealously as they should have.

That concern was rooted in rulings by Boom that attorneys could not present certain out-of-court statements from some witnesses, or make some references to Baker’s earlier state trial.

In his opening argument for Baker, defense attorney Steven Romines quickly ran afoul of Boom’s instructions by mentioning the hearsay evidence the judge “had clearly excluded only moments prior,” Stinnett said.

Boom cautioned Romines he risked being sanctioned, warned him again after opening arguments and admonished him again on the third day of the trial when he asked a witness about some of the barred statements, according to Stinnett’s recommendation.

Baker argued that because of concerns over being sanctioned, Romines didn’t ask a key prosecution witness some questions that could have undermined his testimony, and didn’t make some arguments in his closing statement to the jury.

But Stinnett said that Romines “artfully” questioned the prosecution witness even while avoiding certain questions, and impeached his credibility.

“An attorney choosing to pursue one line of questioning at the avoidance of a more problematic line of questioning to avoid objections and the Court’s ire is something that happens multiple times a day in every trial,” Stinnett wrote. “The Court cannot find this common choice to be deficient performance.”

Stinnett also said Baker had not shown what arguments or evidence Romines didn’t raise in his closing arguments.

The decision said that “despite Baker’s suggestion to the contrary, it never appears that Romines stopped zealously advocating for his client.”

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