Court rejects stabbing suspect's appeal

SANDPOINT — Idaho’s appeals court has affirmed the conviction of a Bonner County man accused of nearly taking a Clark Fork man’s life in a notorious barroom brawl.

A jury convicted Kenneth Dean Rawley of aggravated battery in connection with a stabbing that occurred at the former Out of Bounds tavern in Clark Fork on in the pre-dawn hours of New Year’s Day 2005. Rawley allegedly stabbed Blaine Ben Stevens in the neck during a confrontation and was nearly killed.

District Judge Steve Verby imposed a 12- to 15-year prison term at Rawley’s sentencing hearing.

Rawley, 49, appealed his conviction to the Idaho Court of Appeals challenging a district judge’s denial of a motion for a mistrial and the severity of his sentence. Rawley also raised claims of prosecutorial misconduct and maintained cumulative errors at trial deprived him of due process.

Rawley raised two mistrial issues, one involving the state’s decision not to call a witness with potentially exculpatory testimony and the another concerning the improper testimony of a sheriff’s deputy.

Maralyn Pearson, a retired EMT who responded to the bar on the morning of the stabbing, was originally a state’s witness, but Prosecutor Phil Robinson opted not to call her to the stand.

Rawley’s defense counsel, Gary Amendola, discovered Pearson was going to testify that she saw another subject leaving the bar. The man had blood on his hands and face, and appeared to be carrying an object which might have been a knife, Pearson had said.

Amendola called Pearson as a defense witness and the woman testified that the person she saw departing the scene was not Rawley, court records from the trial show.

In the other mistrial issue, sheriff’s Lt. Gary Johnston was called to testify and recounted an interview of Rawley he conducted following the man’s arrest. Johnston testified that Rawley mentioned he was on federal probation for an unspecified charge.

But the appeals court ruled that the non-disclosure of Pearson’s testimony was cured by the fact that she was ultimately called as a defense witness. The court also found that Verby had admonished jurors to disregard Johnston’s remark about Rawley mentioning he was federal probation.

Rawley also alleged Robinson committed misconduct a number of times during his closing statement to the jury. Rawley said Robinson improperly utilized a preliminary hearing transcript to impeach trial testimony, and misrepresented Pearson’s testimony and expressed an opinion regarding her credibility.

The appeals court disagreed that Robinson misrepresented Pearson’s testimony, finding that Robinson was attempting to demonstrate her testimony was internally inconsistent. The court also ruled that attorneys are given considerable latitude during closing statements.

Rawley asserted additional misconduct occurred when Robinson compared Rawley’s case to that of Scott Peterson, a convicted killer who claimed investigators focused on him while the real murderer was still on the loose. Rawley also took issue with Robinson’s description of the defense case, which he referred to as the “three Cs defense” — complain, confuse and criticize.

The higher court found that Robinson’s Peterson comparison constituted misconduct, but Verby had instructed jurors to decide Rawley’s case solely on the evidence presented. The appeals court also found the “three Cs defense” comments improper, but they did not directly disparage the defense or rise to the level of fundamental error.

Rawley argued that the cumulative effect of the deputy’s testimony and Robinson’s misconduct during closing argument deprived him of a fair trial.

The appeals court did not agree.

“The cumulative effect of the alleged errors did not deprive Rawley of his right to due process. And the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Rawley to a unified term of fifteen years, with a twelve-year minimum term of confinement, for aggravated battery,” Chief Judge Sergio Gutierrez and Judge Karen Lansing said in the appeals court’s Aug. 27 opinion.

Rawley is imprisoned at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna. He becomes eligible for parole in 2019, according to the Idaho Department of Correction.