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August 19, 2010 in City
Jury convicts man in ’08 murder
Victim was shot six times, found behind liquor store
A Stevens County jury on Wednesday found Christopher H. Devlin guilty of aggravated first-degree murder for the May 2008 slaying of 52-year-old Daniel Heily, whose bullet-riddled body was found behind a Deer Park liquor store.
The jury deliberated three days before convicting Devlin, 57. Because Heily was a state’s witness, Devlin faces only one possible sentence – life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“I’m disappointed with the decision,” co-defense attorney Mark Vovos said. “There certainly will be an appeal in this case.”
The jury found Devlin guilty of premeditated first-degree murder, but did not support a weapons enhancement that charged Devlin had used a gun in the commission of a felony.
“I think it’s sort of interesting that Mr. Devlin was not guilty of using a firearm. (Heily) had six shots in him … but the jury found (Devlin) wasn’t armed with a firearm at the time,” Vovos said. “Go figure that out.”
The case began when Heily told police that Devlin broke into Heily’s Spokane County home and assaulted him in 2007. That felony assault trial was set to begin on May 14, 2008, but Heily never showed up to testify.
Spokane County sheriff’s detectives searched for Heily and located him on May 16, 2008, stuffed under the seat of his pickup, which was parked behind a liquor store. He had six gunshot wounds.
Detectives arrested Devlin and Carl A. Hoskins, who identified Devlin as Heily’s killer, according to court records. But Hoskins never testified in the trial even though prosecutors gave him a deal to avoid first-degree murder charges in exchange for his testimony.
Hoskins was released from jail last August after satisfying the 27-month sentence that was promised as part of the deal. It’s unclear whether that deal remains in place since he wasn’t called to testify.
“I’m not sure what will happen with Mr. Hoskins,” Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker said. “I’ll have to check about why he didn’t testify. Otherwise, we are very pleased with the verdict.”
Deputy Spokane County prosecutors Larry Steinmetz and Dale Nagy weren’t immediately available for comment.
Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque rejected a request by Vovos and co-defense attorney Roger Hunko to inform the jury that prosecutors chose not to call Hoskins – who was the only person investigators said witnessed the killing.
Steinmetz implied in court last week that he was holding Hoskins back to rebut any potential testimony from Devlin. But since Devlin didn’t take the stand, Hoskins wasn’t called.
“That was a big issue in the trial,” Vovos said. “We wanted to be able to tell the jury about the deal (Hoskins) had. It’s a procedural, strategic matter that has consequences. I suppose it will have to be dealt with before an appellate court.”
Doney’s sentence upheld 
bszottlinger on August 19 at 6:52 a.m.
T and J:
I read the SR report of the verdict today. What an odd verdict. I bet the little talk with the jury after trial was interesting. It is a murder case so obviously there will be an appeal but in my opinion based solely on the media reports there is a good chance this may come back to haunt Spokane County. I did not like this statement attributed to Mr. Tucker, “I’ll have to check about why he didn’t testify”, referring to Hoskins. This jurisdiction does not have that many murder trials and as far as I know, it was the only one going on at the time. Why Mr. Tucker did not know what was going on with the case puzzles me, especially after the original “mismanagement”. It is important to allow your trial team to have their own heads to a certain extent, but it looks to me like in this case they may have needed considerably more direction. I’m not discounting the fact they got a guilty verdict, good on them, but I would think you would admit that there APPEARS to be some real problems with this one. I don’t know if Mr. Clouse is going to look into what the “mismanagement” of the case cost the taxpayer but it is something I’d be interested in.
Brad Szottlinger
horse_feathers on August 19 at 9:21 a.m.
This was a strong case for the prosecution before Steinmetz lied to the court about the jurisdiction. Things went down hill from there with fights between the prosecuters from Stevens and Spokane counties, the death penalty being taken off the table and this, the final weird guilty verdict. A two year old kid with half a brain could of done a better job of handling this case.
bszottlinger on August 19 at 10:14 a.m.
horse feathers:
My posting above was directed at Truth and Justice who has some inside info regarding the Spokane County Prosecutors Office hopefully he will come back on and provide some insight.
I do not believe Mr. Steinmetz lied to the court, I believe it was a matter of withholding discovery to the defense for a period of a year that caused all of the pre-trial problems. Not calling witness Hoskins during the case in chief MAY have caused not only problems for the jury but also MAY cause the case to be retried, at added expense to the taxpayer. I’m a bit surprised there was little interest in this case earlier. I thought for sure with Ron_the_Cop’s distain for Mr. Tucker he would have jumped all over this. In my mind Mr. Tucker owes the public an explanation as to why there have been so many problems with his high profile cases, Devlin, Olsen, and several others.
It appears to me that change is in order whether or not Mr. Tucker is reelected.
From this thread you can see Truth and Justice’s response to my earlier questions.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/aug/12/editorial-bugbee-has-skills-to-lead-prosecutors/?c=181027&comments=1#c181027
Brad Szottlinger
Juror11 on August 19 at 4:27 p.m.
We were not aware of the deal between Mr. Hoskins and the state, therefore we were only able to determine that Mr. Devlin was the primary party responsible for the death of Mr. Heily, however, we had no evidence that he was the one who actually pulled the trigger, in regards to the special verdict regarding a firearm. Now that the jury order to not look up any additional information is lifted, I can still stand by the choices we made, with the information available at the time, with peace of mind as well. For the record, the defense wasn’t even present in the court room when we delivered our verdict.
bszottlinger on August 19 at 5:04 p.m.
Juror11:
Thank you so very much for your service to the community. I am not nor should anyone else question in any way your verdict. The questions that have been brought up here, have nothing at all to do with the jury or the verdict. Rest assured you all came up with the right verdict. You had absolutely nothing to do with the evidence that was presented or how the prosecution and defense presented their case. Wonderful job, and thank you again
Brad Szottlinger
mikemitchel on August 24 at 7:03 a.m.
I knew Dan Heily for over 25 years prior to his tragic death. He was a kind person and a hard working man. He worked for a construction company that I owned in Spokane and he was a great asset to the community and a wonderful personal friend of mine.
I personally am pleased with the judgment. You see - I would rather have a cold-hearted killer spend the rest of his life in jail or prison with reoccurring hopes of appeals and parole. I will get great satisfaction each time I read that he loses an appeal or is denied parole. I want him to be alive to hear about his ex wife or girl friend finding new companionship. I want him to be alive so that he may experience prison shower romance. I want him to be alive and hear about all of great things that life has to offer outside the bars of prison. I want him to personally miss all of the great things that life has to offer - All of the same experiences that he took away from Dan Heily.
Mr. Devlin – Enjoy the rest of your life in living Hell. If you have any doubts about your future, look up the history of Mr. Kevin Coe. Your attitude parallels his and I am sure your outcome will be similar to his.
Mike Mitchel
San Diego, Ca