ST. PAUL -- The Minnesota Supreme Court will not review the first-degree murder indictments against a man charged with killing two teenagers in 2012 in rural Little Falls.
The high court on Wednesday denied without comment Byron Smith’s request to reconsider the indictments.
Smith, 65, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the Thanksgiving Day 2012 shooting deaths of Haile Kifer, 18, and her cousin, Nicholas Brady, 16.
Smith previously admitted to shooting the teens after they allegedly broke into his rural Little Falls home. According to the criminal complaint, Smith shot the teenagers several times after they walked down his basement stairs.
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Little Falls is in central Minnesota, about 35 miles north of St. Cloud.
A pretrial hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday, with jury selection expected to begin the week of April 14.
Smith entered a not guilty plea in January.
The defendant’s attorney, Steven Meshbesher, earlier had filed appeals seeking a review of Judge Douglas Anderson’s decision to deny a defense motion seeking dismissal of the grand jury’s indictment. The defense argued that the indictment wasn’t supported by probable cause, that the grand jury did not properly deliberate or vote on the indictment, and that the indictment should be dismissed for cumulative errors.
Washington County Attorney Peter Orput is prosecuting the state’s case.
