No death penalty prosecution against Ogden white supremacist gang member
Dash
Jenson
OGDEN — Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against a white supremacist gang member charged in the shooting death of a North Ogden man.
Attorney Grant Morrison, representing Ryan Joseph Dash, 33, said in 2nd District Court on Wednesday that the Weber County Attorney’s Office has informed him it would not seek capital punishment.
“That gives us a range of options to go over,” Morrison told Judge Ernie Jones, who set another hearing for Dec. 30.
Dash is charged with first-degree felony aggravated murder in the Feb. 8 shooting of Dalton Wood in North Ogden.
Under state law, if prosecutors choose not to pursue the death penalty, an aggravated murder defendant upon conviction may be sentenced to 25 years to life or life without parole.
A police affidavit said Dash, of Ogden, told detectives he had assaulted Wood’s brother, and Wood after that threatened him.
They arranged to meet in North Ogden, Dash said, and he then “killed the m———–.”
Dash said he acted alone. But another white supremacist gang member, Brian Christopher Jenson, 29, also is charged, facing a count of first-degree felony murder.
The police affidavit said Wood was shot in the chest with a handgun and in the lower extremities with a shotgun.
Dash told police he threw the murder weapons off an overpass in Box Elder County and burned his clothing in a church parking lot.
The police affidavit said witnesses reported hearing two gunshots at the murder scene in North Ogden and two men driving away in an SUV.
Dash has a violent criminal history. The murder took place three weeks after Dash was paroled from the Utah State Prison.
Dash’s most recent conviction was for aggravated assault for stabbing his cellmate in 2014.
Jenson’s case also was on Jones’ docket Wednesday. He is held in the Weber County Jail.
His court-appointed lawyer, Randall Marshall, asked for a hearing delay until Dec. 30 because Jenson recently was charged in federal court in an unrelated case.
Jenson, of Brigham City, is one of 21 people named in a federal investigation of alleged drug and gun dealing by white supremacist gang members.