PORT ANGELES — A Clallam County Superior Court judge is considering whether to suppress from a jury the bloody pants that Darold Stenson was wearing after Denise Stenson and Frank Hoerner were found slain in 1993.
Stenson’s attorneys claimed the pants should not be allowed at the September trial because they were mishandled by investigators.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly countered in a response to the defense motion that the evidence was not compromised or handled in bad faith and that the pants should be admissible at trial.
Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor heard nuanced arguments on whether to allow the key evidence — and ruled on two other motions — in a daylong court hearing Wednesday.
Taylor set another motion hearing for 10 a.m. July 10.
“I am hopeful that we can get most of the remaining motions dealt with at that time, and I will be in a position to make a ruling on the motion to suppress the pants at that time,” Taylor told attorneys.
Earlier Wednesday, Taylor denied a motion by Stenson’s legal team to dismiss the two charges of aggravated first-degree murder against Stenson.
Taylor also granted Kelly’s motion for a continuance to give her more time to prepare for trial. The trial will be held in Kitsap County beginning with jury selection Sept. 16, rather than the previously scheduled July 8.
Kelly is prosecuting the complex case by herself. Stenson, 60, is being represented by Roger Hunko of Port Orchard, Blake Kremer of University Place and Sherilyn Peterson of Seattle.
Stenson, a former death row inmate, was convicted in 1994 of aggravated first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of his wife, Denise, and his business partner, Hoerner, at Stenson’s exotic bird farm on Kane Lane near Sequim.
He spent 14 years on death row, maintaining his innocence, and was eight days from being executed by lethal injection when a judge issued a stay of execution in 2008.
Detective wore pants
The state Supreme Court overturned the conviction in May 2012, ruling 8-to-1 that Stenson’s rights were violated because the state “wrongfully suppressed” photographs showing Sheriff’s Detective Monty Martin wearing Stenson’s bloodstained jeans.
Martin said in a court affidavit that he wore the pants over his own in the course of investigating the murders to check the validity of Stenson’s explanation: that the blood got on the pants while Stenson kneeled next to Hoerner’s body after discovering that Hoerner was shot.
The case was remanded back to Clallam County for a new trial. Stenson is being held in the Clallam County jail on no bond.
Kremer on Monday replied in writing to Kelly’s response to the motion to suppress the pants and articulated his arguments in open court Wednesday.
“The only value of these pants is the prejudicial shock value of showing a pair of pants that a defendant was wearing that had blood on them,” Kremer said.
“Do they mean one thing or another? I don’t know. But they have some shock value.”
Bloody patches from the pants were cut out and sent to an FBI lab for analysis and discarded. A witness for the prosecution will testify that the blood spatters were consistent with a high-velocity bullet.
The defendant was “shocked and horrified by seeing the bloody mayhem, and there may have been blood that brushed against him,” Kremer said.
Handling of evidence
Kremer said Martin broke the chain of custody because he took the pants to his “unsanitary garage and spread them out on the floor and experimented with them” in April 1994.
Kelly defended investigators’ handling of evidence.
“[The defense] refers to the pants being spread out [in] Monty Martin’s garage, and this is evidence of poor handling,” Kelly said.
“Well, no, your honor. It’s evidence of this being a rural county without huge facilities.
“They used his garage because his house was newly constructed,” Kelly said.
“It was a big space. They needed a big space. It had darkened windows and such to do Luminol testing.”
Luminol testing is conducted to check for the presence of blood.
Photos in the exhibit file show paper laid down for the examination of the pants, Kelly said.
She said the pants were processed according to the standards of the law.
“With respect to chain of custody, no, it is not perfect,” Kelly said.
“But it doesn’t have to be.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
