PR shooting suspect professes innocence

SANDPOINT — A Priest River man accused of shooting his father to death late last year pleaded not guilty on Monday.

Gregor Dana Firey's seven-day jury trial is scheduled to begin in 1st District Court on Jan. 23, 2006. He remains free on bond while the case is pending.

If the case makes it to trial and a jury convicts Firey as charged, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Firey, 37, is charged with shooting his 60-year-old father, Ronald Lee Firey, at a home north of Priest River on Nov. 22, 2004. What led up to the shooting remains unclear.

Only two people — the defendant and the victim — were privy to what happened on the night in question, and one is dead and the other is invoking his constitutional right to remain silent.

Firey was originally charged with first-degree murder, but Judge Justin Julian ruled last month there was insufficient evidence to sustain that charge and reduced it to voluntary manslaughter.

Firey's court-appointed defense counsel, Chief Public Defender Hugh Nisbet, argued at the hearing that the shooting, if anything, was a justifiable homicide rooted in self-defense. Julian, however, found Gregor Firey likely opened fire on his father with an assault rifle upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of the moment.