OLYMPIA — The state Court of Appeals reversed Robert Gene Covarrubias’ 2006 murder conviction on Tuesday, and sent the case back to Clallam County Superior Court for a retrial.
A Clallam County jury found Covarrubias, who was 25 at the time, guilty of strangling 15-year-old Melissa Leigh Carter to death after raping her, in April 2006.
He was sentenced to 34 years in prison, while wearing a jail jumpsuit on which he had printed, on the back, “innocent” in big block letters.
The Court of Appeals determined 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.
“We hold that sufficient evidence supports the conviction, but because cumulative error prejudiced him, we reverse and remand for a new trial,” said the opinion signed by Judge George Lamont Wood.
“The court read the whole record and didn’t think Mr. Covarrubias got a fair trial, ” said Jodi R. Backlund of Backlund & Mistry of Olympia. She and Manek R. Mistry have represented Covarrubias since his two appeals — which were combined in the appeal court’s ruling — were filed in 2006.
Disappointed by ruling
Clallam County Prosecutor Deb Kelly said she is disappointed by the ruling.
“We turned things over as soon as it touched our hands,” she said.
“The defense chose to wait to request a lot of that evidence until the last minute.”
The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has 30 days to challenge the ruling in state Supreme Court.
Kelly said on Tuesday that she has yet to decide if she will challenge the ruling.
Attorney Ralph Anderson, who had petitioned the court for a new trial in October 2006 after he represented Covarrubias — along with Harry Gasnick — as a public defender during the trial, was ecstatic.
“We were heartbroken when he was convicted,” he said.
“We are extremely pleased the court took the right action and reversed the action. We look forward to clearing his name in a retrial.”
Body found on trail
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 CorectionCenter 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.
Writing for the Court of Appeals, Judge Elaine Houden said that each of the 16 delayed disclosures would not be sufficient by themselves to warrant a retrial.
“But the overall impact of the state’s pattern of delayed disclosures impaired Covarrubias’ ability both to prepare for trial and to receive a fair trial,” she wrote.
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.
But, Anderson said, particularly damaging to Covarrubias was that a statement from another man about wanting to “remove [Carter] from the world” was not disclosed until the trial was halfway over.
“It was clear that the state had not provided this very important statement … We were restrained from going into other-suspect evidence for at least half of the trial,” Anderson said.
Other late disclosures cited by the court are:
•âÇCrime scene and autopsy photographs, disclosed on March 15, 2006, which was 12 days before the trial began.
•âÇPolice witness interviews that were not produced as of trial.
•âÇAn expert’s endorsement on crime scenes, disclosed during the first week of trial.
•âÇLab reports from approximately 75 items, received by the defense in the three weeks leading up to trial.
•âÇA fingerprint report from a place referred to as the “squat house,” disclosed on March 31, 2006 at the end of the first week of trial.
•âÇCriswell’s statement to police repeatedly denying that he had sexual relations with Carter omitted from pretrial summaries provided to the defense.
•âÇA mental health counselor’s proposed testimony about a witness, disclosed March 30, 2006, the third day of trial.
•âÇSelove’s autopsy notes, including an observation of no neck injury and that body may have been dragged on asphalt, disclosed April 4, 2006.
•âÇPhotographs of the “squat house,” disclosed April 10, 2006.
•âÇLab technician James Tarver’s testimony from notes not provided to the defense before he testified on April 10.
•âÇA report from a lab technician that contradicted a previously-provided blood test disclosed on April 12.
•âÇA crime lab analyst’s testimony using notes not provided to defense.
•âÇVarious pretrial disclosures, in June and July, related to prior crimes of two witnesses.
If the ruling is not challenged, Anderson said that Clallam County Superior Court would be told by the state court to set a trial date.
Covarrubias would then be transferred to Clallam County jail.
According to Backlund, Covarrubias has been serving his sentence in a New Hampshire prison.
The state Department of Corrections contracts with prisons in several states, she said. Although they are serving Washington state prison terms, some prisoners are doing so in other states.
Judges J. Robin Hunt and Joel Penoyar concurred in the opinion.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
