PORT ANGELES — Convicted murderer Robert Gene Covarrubias will have a new trial in Clallam County Superior Court, and his first court appearance is scheduled April 24.
A Clallam County jury convicted Covarrubias in April 2006 of strangling 15-year-old Melissa Leigh Carter to death, after raping her, in December 2004.
Covarrubias, who was 25 at the time, was sentenced to 34 years in prison.
He maintained that he was innocent — even appearing at his sentencing hearing with the word “innocent” scrawled across the back of his jumpsuit — and immediately appealed his conviction, saying he should have a new trial.
He is being held out of the state and will be transported back to the Clallam County jail at some point before his first court appearance, said Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly on Saturday.
The Court of Appeals determined on Jan. 6 that, although there is enough evidence to support a conviction, Covarrubias deserves a retrial because the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office disclosed 16 pieces of evidence to defense attorneys too late in the process, from pretrial hearings in March through sentencing.
Kelly opted not to appeal
Kelly said that she had decided not to appeal the ruling.
“After consulting with law enforcement, I decided that it was better at this point to go ahead and bring him back for retrial rather than taking the process out any further,” Kelly said.
Kelly filed a request on March 16 to transport Covarrubias back to Clallam County. A hearing on March 20 began the proceedings. At the hearing, attorney Ralph Anderson, who represented Covarrubias in his previous case, said that he might be retained as counsel for the new trial. No attorney has been appointed yet.
Three teenage boys found Carter’s nude body behind a tree near the Waterfront Trail just east of downtown Port Angeles on Dec. 26, 2004.
DNA from Covarrubias, who had been released from Clallam Bay Corrections Center earlier that month, was found inside her body, according to court records.
Throughout the trial, Covarrubias maintained that he and Carter had consensual sex the night of Dec. 23, 2004 after a party at the Chinook Motel on East First Street, and that she was killed after they parted company.
His attorneys defense had argued that somebody else killed her.
A man identified Covarrubias as the man he saw in a dispute with a teenage female while walking on the trail.
Cumulative effect
It was the cumulative effect of the 16 delayed disclosures that led to the appellant court ddecision, even though each one individually would not be sufficient to warrant a retrial, said the author of the ruling, Judge Elaine Houghton.
Some of those items involving an expert’s endorsement on crime scenes, lab reports, autopsy photographs and notes, lab technician testimony and a mental health counselor’s testimony.
Judges J. Robin Hunt and Joel Penoyar concurred in the opinion.
Attorney Jodi R. Backlund of Backlund & Mistry of Olympia who, along with Manek R. Mistry, has represented Covarrubias since he filed two appeals in 2006, said in January that Covarrubias has been serving his sentence in a New Hampshire prison.
The Washington state Department of Corrections contracts for cell space in prisons in several states, she said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
