Retrial denied in adult bookstore killing

OLYMPIA – The man convicted of murdering the owner of an adult bookstore in Spokane won’t get a new trial just because the person who tested his DNA on the murder weapon was later fired for incompetence, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

A unanimous court rejected the appeal of Julio Davila, who was convicted in the killing of John Allen. Allen was found beaten to death in his East Sprague adult bookstore in 2007. Another man was initially convicted of Allen’s murder in 2008, but investigators found fingerprints in the store and DNA on the bat used to kill Allen that they couldn’t trace at that time.

When Davila’s DNA was collected in an unrelated felony conviction several years later, the Washington State Patrol got a “match” with samples from the Allen case. Davila was tried and convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

But prosecutors never told Davila’s attorney that the DNA samples collected from the crime scene were originally tested by Denise Olson, a forensic scientist who later was fired by the patrol for incompetence. The state was required to reveal that detail, and Davila should have been able to present that to the jury, his attorney argued.

The high court agreed Davila’s lawyer should have been told, but said those omissions weren’t enough to grant Davila a new trial.

A supervisor at the lab had retested the DNA sample from the bat and confirmed the two matched, the court said. Fingerprints found on a glass counter close to where Davis’ body was found matched Davila’s.

After Davila was convicted, the man originally convicted of Allen’s death, Jeramie Davis, was released when prosecutors couldn’t link him to Davila.

Work-related texts are public records

The Supreme Court also unanimously ruled that a public employee’s work-related text messages sent and received on a private cellphone are public records.

The ruling came in a case filed by Pierce County sheriff’s Detective Glenda Nissen, who had asked for Prosecutor Mark Lindquist’s call and text records. Nissen had sued the county, claiming Lindquist banned her from his office after she criticized the prosecutor and backed his opponent. The requests included texts that he made and received on his private cellphone.

In response, Lindquist gave the county a “call log” and “text message log” – itemized statements that contained the dates and times of calls and messages, and the telephone numbers involved. The text logs did not include the contents of the messages. Lindquist acknowledged that some of the calls and texts were work-related.

Nissen sued the county, arguing that the records that related to Lindquist’s work should be made public. The trial judge sided with the county, saying private cellphone records are not public records. The Supreme Court disagreed and ordered Lindquist to produce those records to the county.