A Baker City man accused of stabbing another man in March 2024 won’t go on trial this week on charges that, if he were convicted, could result in a mandatory prison term of up to seven years and six months.

James Robert Blitch, 54, was arrested on March 26, 2024.

He has been in the Baker County Jail since then. His bail is $100,000, and he could be released by posting 10% of that amount.

Blitch was scheduled to go to trial on May 27, but the trial has been canceled. A status hearing check on the case is set for June 3 at 8 a.m. in Baker County Circuit Court.

One of Blitch’s two attorneys, Thomas Boone of Albany, filed a motion May 22 related to the testimony of an expert witness, Dr. Josh Sirucek, that the prosecution intends to call. Because Sirucek lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho, the state requested that he be allowed to testify remotely rather than in person during a trial.

According to Boone’s motion, Blitch’s first attorney, William Thomson, didn’t object to the state’s request for Sirucek to testify remotely.

But Boone wrote in the motion that although Thomson didn’t object to Sirucek testifying remotely, “that was against the express wishes of the Defendant himself and therefore it was not voluntarily.”

Boone also wrote that Blitch’s lead attorney, Joseph Sullivan of Bend, didn’t learn about the remote testimony issue until May 16, which is 11 days before the trial was scheduled to start.

“This Counsel urges the Court to consider the surprised-nature of the remote appearance while ruling on this motion because these current Defense Counsels have tactical reasons to cross the witness in person,” Boone wrote in the May 22 motion. “The Defense needs to cross this witness in person and has moved for a trial continuance, for other reasons as well, but the Court should grant the continuance and force the in person testimony of the State’s expert.”

“It does not matter how far away a necessary witness for the State resides if the State intends on locking up the Defendant in prison using that witness,” Boone wrote in his motion. “A core element of American criminal jurisprudence is the actual confrontation of complaining witnesses – so much so that the Oregon Constitution expressly includes this procedural right.”

A hearing on Boone’s motion is set for Friday, May 30, at 8 a.m.

The charges

Blitch is accused of stabbing Jerry Dean Littleton, 57, of Baker City, around 3 a.m. on March 5, 2024, outside an apartment at 1616 Auburn Ave., between the Powder River and East Street.

Littleton was taken by friends to Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City, where he was treated for the stab wound, and then by ambulance to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, where he was treated and later released.

A Baker County grand jury  reviewed the case and issued a secret indictment on March 19, 2024, charging Blitch with first-degree assault and second-degree assault.

In court records, Blitch’s lead attorney, Sullivan, has cited the possibility that Blitch acted in self-defense.

On Feb. 4, 2025, Sullivan filed a motion asking a judge to either dismiss the charges or to toss out the 2024 indictment.

In his motion, Sullivan wrote that Littleton, who testified to the grand jury, “potentially provided false material testimony.”

Sullivan wrote in his motion that one grand juror apparently believed that Blitch had stabbed Littleton twice, while another grand juror apparently believed that Littleton had three stab wounds.

Medical records, as well as a police officer’s statement, indicate that Littleton had one stab wound, according to Sullivan’s motion.

In a report of the incident, Baker City Police Sgt. Rand Weaver wrote that a doctor at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City told him that the wound punctured Littleton’s lung. Reports from Weaver and from Baker City Police Detective Josh Chandler both noted that a doctor told the officers that if the knife hadn’t gone into Littleton’s chest at an angle, it could have pierced his heart.

Sullivan wrote in his Feb. 4 motion that Littleton testified that he hit Blitch with a pool cue just before the stabbing.

According to Sullivan’s motion, had the grand jury heard that Littleton was stabbed once after hitting Blitch with a pool cue, “there is a high potential the grand jury may have inquired upon the Court regarding the application of self-defense in this instance.”

On March 6, 2024, the day after the stabbing, Chandler and Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby drove to Boise to interview Littleton in the hospital.

Chandler wrote that Littleton said he was in his room in the basement at 1616 Auburn when he heard banging on the garage door, after 3 a.m. Littleton said he went upstairs and heard a woman, who was also in the basement, arguing with a man whose voice he recognized as Blitch’s. Littleton told the officers that he took a section of a pool pcue and walked toward Blitch.

Littleton said he told Blitch to leave, but Blitch refused.

“Littleton stated he struck Blitch in the shoulder with the pool cue and he felt something stabbing his left ribcage,” Chandler wrote in his report.

Greg Baxter, Baker County district attorney, filed a response to Sullivan’s motion on Feb. 14, arguing that neither dismissing the charges nor tossing out the 2024 indictment was warranted.

During a hearing March 28 in Baker County Circuit Court, Sullivan and Baxter agreed to several things, including that Baxter would take the case back to a grand jury seeking a new indictment prior to the trial.

The grand jury on April 3 indicted Blitch on the same two charges as the 2024 indictment: first- and second-degree assault. Both first-degree and second-degree assault are Measure 11 crimes in Oregon that carry mandatory minimum prison sentences on conviction.

But given that there was a single stab wound, even if Blitch were convicted on both charges, the sentences would be concurrent, not consecutive.

That means the longest potential prison term would be seven years and six months, the minimum for first-degree assault. The minimum for second-degree assault is five years and 10 months.