Court reverses death sentence

OLYMPIA – The state Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the conviction and death sentence of a man accused of killing his wife and business partner and called for a new trial in his double murder case.

In an 8-1 ruling, the state high court said that Darold Stenson’s rights were violated because the state “wrongfully suppressed” photographs that raised questions about mishandling of evidence as well as an FBI file that wasn’t provided to the defense until 2009, years after Stenson was convicted.

Stenson was sentenced to death in 1994 for the 1993 slaying of his wife, Denise, and a business partner, Frank Hoerner, at Stenson’s Clallam County exotic bird farm.

The high court noted that other than two key pieces of evidence that tied Stenson to the shootings, the remainder of the evidence provided at trial was “largely circumstantial.” Those two pieces of evidence – gunshot residue found inside the front pocket of the jeans Stenson was wearing when officers arrived and blood spatter on the front of those jeans “consistent with Hoerner’s blood protein profile” – were at the heart of Stenson’s most recent appeal to the high court.

At issue were photographs showing sheriff’s Detective Monty Martin wearing Darold Stenson’s jeans with the right pocket turned out and Martin’s ungloved hands and an FBI file indicating an agent who testified did not perform a gunshot residue test, which the court said was implied at the trial.

Stenson had claimed that he kneeled next to Hoerner’s body, accounting for the blood on the jeans. But an expert witness called by the prosecution had testified that was not possible.