Death penalty trial for man accused of killing state trooper, relative pushed back to 2024

The death penalty trial of a Livingston Parish man accused of killing of a Louisiana State Trooper and a Prairieville woman in Ascension Parish a year and a half ago has been pushed back about six months to the spring of 2024.

The move comes just weeks after an ad hoc Ascension Parish judge rejected a bid by the defense attorneys for the man, Matthew Mire, to recuse the judge overseeing his case. His defense attorneys have since decided to push to have the ruling reviewed by an appellate court, court papers say.

Mire, 32, of Livingston, is accused of ambushing and shooting State Master Trooper Adam Gaubert several times at a Prairieville bank off Airline Highway as he did paperwork in his parked patrol unit, on Oct. 9, 2021.

Mire then killed Prairieville resident Pamela Adair, a relative by marriage, and shot her partner at their home less than a mile away, police and prosecutors have said. Mire had previously that day shot two others in Livingston Parish and stolen a truck, authorities added.

He led police on a chase and day-long manhunt through Ascension, Livingston and East Baton Rouge parishes before he was captured near Bayou Manchac.  

In December, Mire’s capital defense attorney, Kerry Cuccia, argued that having 23rd Judicial District Judge Tess Stromberg preside had the appearance of a conflict of interest because her younger brother, Detective Adam Percy, is the second-in-command in the Ascension Parish sheriff’s evidence department.

Percy had testified during a December hearing that all evidence collected by deputies eventually passes across his desk. He said he did deliver some evidence in the Mire case in already sealed and labeled bags to the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab. 

But prosecutors had argued the Percy’s role with evidence was limited, noting he didn’t collect it from the scene and knew as much about it as a “UPS guy” would about a package he was delivering.

Judge Stromberg also testified during the hearing that, were her brother to appear before her as a witness, it would “absolutely not” result in bias by her and that she saw no reason to remove herself.