PORT ANGELES — The stay of execution for convicted double-murderer Darold Stenson will lapse in three months.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams on Tuesday ordered the stay to be terminated Aug. 25 after further DNA testing failed to provide evidence that someone other than Stenson killed his wife and business partner 17 years ago.
The murders took place on his Dungeness exotic-bird farm.
Williams is allowing the death-row inmate’s attorneys 90 days to challenge the results of the test, which sampled 15 pieces of evidence, or to request more sampling.
Request for evidence considered
Seattle attorney Sheryl McCloud said a request to have more evidence sampled for DNA is being considered.
McCloud, a court-appointed attorney, represents Stenson along with Robert Gombiner of the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Seattle.
Stenson, 57, would be executed 30 business days after the stay is terminated.
In the meantime, Stenson’s attorneys are relying on the state Supreme Court to prevent that from happening.
That court is considering whether to give Stenson a new trial over possible evidence contamination, and McCloud has requested that it approves another stay until it makes its decision.
McCloud said she remains confident that the Supreme Court will grant another stay in order to give it time to rule on whether Stenson deserves a retrial.
The court is considering whether to grant the retrial because of a photograph that Stenson’s attorneys argue nullifies the results of a gunshot residue test used to convict him.
The photograph, taken in 1994 and found by his attorneys last year, shows the lead investigator wearing Stenson’s blood-stained jeans.
The investigator, who was not wearing gloves, donned the jeans at the request of a blood-spatter expert who thought it would help determine whether Stenson got blood on his pants by kneeling by the victims or attacking them.
An FBI test, conducted after the picture was taken, found gun-shot residue in the right front pocket of the jeans.
Evidence contamination claimed
The same pocket can be seen turned inside out in the photograph, therefore, exposing it to contamination, say Stenson’s attorneys.
Williams, who heard oral arguments on the issue on behalf of the Supreme Court in March, concluded that the FBI’s test shouldn’t have been used as evidence.
But he also found that exclusion of the gun-shot residue testimony “would not have probably changed the outcome” of the trial.
Investigators concluded the blood got on the jeans by Stenson either attacking his business partner, Frank Hoerner, or dragging his body.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
