PORT ANGELES — Darold “D.J.” Stenson testified on Monday that he did not fire the gun that killed his wife and business partner 17 years ago, and a photograph that wasn’t used in his 1994 murder trial shows the possibility of evidence contamination .
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly countered that Stenson, a convicted double-murderer and death row inmate, had ample opportunities to question the evidence used in his case and that he waited too long to file a personal restraint petition.
Stenson’s lawyers are seeking a new trial over the handling of evidence collected after the 1993 murders of Denise Stenson and Frank Hoerner at Stenson’s exotic-bird farm in the Dungeness Valley.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams is presiding over the evidence hearing, which resumes today at the Clallam County Courthouse with re-direct testimony from Stenson at 9 a.m.
Robert Gombiner and Sheryl McCloud of Seattle, Stenson’s lawyers, argued on Monday that the results of a gun-residue test cannot be trusted.
They say a photograph taken about a year after the murders sheds doubt on evidence used against Stenson.
“I think Judge Williams is providing a fair forum for the parties to present evidence about the state’s withholding of all this information that would have shown D.J.’s innocence,” McCloud said after the daylong hearing.
Supreme Court
Williams will make a recommendation to the state Supreme Court on the matter by March 30.
The hearing began on March 8 and is expected to continue through Wednesday.
“It’s chugging along,” said Kelly, who cross-examined Stenson near the end of Monday’s proceedings.
Stenson was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in December 2008 at the state prison in Walla Walla.
Separate stays of execution — one in Clallam County and one in U.S. District Court — were granted in late November 2008.
Judge Williams granted the Clallam County stay after a new witness, Robert Shinn, stepped forward saying Stenson was not guilty and had been framed.
The execution was canceled on Dec. 1, just two days before it was scheduled.
Prosecutors say the case has been argued and appealed in numerous court jurisdictions, including the U.S. Supreme Court twice.
Stenson, who is being held in the Clallam County jail during the hearing, said prosecutors hid evidence that could have helped his case.
He is also requesting through the state Supreme Court that pieces of evidence from the investigation be sampled for DNA, and is challenging the state’s lethal injection policy in U.S. District Court.
Oral arguments on DNA sampling will be heard in Supreme Court on Thursday.
The photograph in questions shows a detective sergeant with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office wearing a pair of jeans that Stenson was said to have worn on the day of the slayings.
The detective in the photo, Monty Martin, who is now a staff sergeant, was not wearing gloves in the photograph, and the right pocket was turned out.
Stenson’s legal team is arguing that the photograph shows that the jeans were contaminated before they were put through a gun-residue test about a week later.
The FBI found four particles of gun residue in the front pockets of the pants during the initial investigation. The results of that test were used as evidence to convict Stenson.
Gombiner said Martin did not disclose that he tried on the pants, or that a photograph of him wearing the pants existed.
“My complaint is that you hid the photographs,” Gombiner said, while being cross-examined by Special Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Pam Loginsky.
“You hid the knowledge. You made the arguments. You were ones who said that there’s no possibility of contamination. You are the ones that lied to the jury about what happened to those pants.”
Martin is expected to take the stand on Wednesday.
On direct examination, Stenson said he heard about the photograph of Martin wearing his pants in January 2009 and saw in February of 2009.
Recollections vague
He said his memory was vague because he had a series of heart attacks from January 2009 through June 2009 that were misdiagnosed as acid reflux disease.
Stenson, who testified from the defendant’s chair in an orange jump suit, said he never saw the photograph of Martin wearing his pants before his trial.
“I just knew something wasn’t correct,” Stenson said.
“I did not fire the gun that morning, so if there was residue there, it was not from me firing the gun. It had to be from some other source.”
Stenson said he became frustrated last year and filed a petition in state Supreme Court in May after the photo of Martin wearing his pants emerged.
“I had come so close to being murdered in December,” he said.
“I was hoping that at the rate that forensic science has advanced that maybe my children or grandchildren would someday do something about it.”
In order to be granted a new trial, Loginsky said Stenson’s lawyers have to prove that Stenson’s defense didn’t have access to the photographs at the time of the trial.
She has said the picture of Martin was available at the time, but the defense didn’t do the necessary research.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.