PORT ANGELES — Attorneys for former Sequim resident Darold Ray Stenson, who faces execution for murder on Dec. 3, have filed an appeal for a stay of execution with the state Supreme Court, after motions were denied in Clallam County Superior Court on Friday.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Williams ruled that he doesn’t have the authority to grant a stay of execution needed to conduct additional DNA testing requested by Stenson’s Seattle lawyers, Robert Gombiner and Sheryl McCloud, who appeared in court in Port Angeles.
Stenson, 55, who is on death row at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for murdering his wife and business partner in 1993 at his exotic bird farm southeast of Sequim.
If the state’s high court approves the appeal, Stenson’s execution would be put on hold until the testing can be conducted.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said filing the appeal itself will not affect the execution date.
“I have no idea how rapidly they will move,” she said, referring to the Supreme Court.
Convicted in 1994
Stenson was convicted in Clallam County in 1994 on two counts of first degree aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of his 28-year-old wife, Denise, and business partner Frank Hoerner, 33 on March 25, 1993.
Over the years since, Stenson has maintained that he is innocent.
Stenson’s lawyers claim that by using a new form of DNA testing, known as mini-STR, his innocence could be proven.
It allows a smaller amount of DNA to be tested than the technology permitted in 1994.
Kelly said the prosecution believes that further testing wouldn’t be adequate to prove Stenson’s innocence, since several people have handled the items that would be subject to testing — such as a firearm — without gloves after the original testing was done 14 years ago.
“They are handled by very likely as many as 12, 15 or 20 people,” she said.
“Finding somebody else’s DNA doesn’t tell you anything.”
Stenson’s lawyers couldn’t be reached for comment on Friday.
His execution would be the 78th in the state since 1904.
The last Washington state inmate to be executed was James Elledge in 2001.
Eight men are now on death row.
In 1994, prosecutors linked Stenson to the murders by arguing that he killed his wife for insurance money and murdered Hoerner in an attempt to frame him.
In an appeal, Stenson argued that Hoerner shot Denise Stenson and killed himself. The appeal was rejected by the state Supreme Court in July 1997.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Stenson’s lawyers in March 1998.
The appeal went back to the state Supreme Court in September 1999, and Stenson’s lawyers asked the court to reconsider the death sentence in January 2004 in the wake of the Green River Killer receiving a life sentence as part of a plea bargain for the murders of 48 women.
Another appeal was rejected in November 2004, when the state Supreme Court found that it didn’t present new evidence.
Stenson’s lawyers questioned the constitutionality of the conviction, and the case went before U.S. District Court in 2005 before it reached the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued a mandate on Oct. 31 that terminates the federal court’s stay of execution.
Frank Hoerner’s widow, Denise Hoerner, who lives near Sequim, has said she doesn’t know if she will attend the execution.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
