Appeals court nixes convicted killer's petition

SANDPOINT — The Idaho Court of Appeals is rejecting convicted killer Darryl Robin Kuehl’s second attempt at obtaining post-conviction relief.

Kuehl is serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of Paul Gruber, a retired schoolteacher who lived at Muskrat Lake. Kuehl was also convicted of forgery and grand theft in connection with Gruber’s slaying.

Gruber’s body was discovered in his own home’s crawl space in 1995. Kuehl was accused of shooting the 53-year-old Gruber to death and then assuming his identity to cover up the crime.

Kuehl, 61, has maintained his innocence and contends somebody else killed Gruber, hijacked the slain man’s identity and framed him.

A Bonner County jury convicted Kuehl in 1997.

Since then, the case became fodder for true-crime documentary television programs, while Kuehl embarked on a protracted legal odyssey to undo the conviction.

A direct appeal of his conviction was rejected in 2002. A petition for post-conviction relief met a similar fate in 2008. But while that petition was pending, Kuehl filed a second petition, which asserted ineffective assistance of counsel on his direct appeal and other claims for relief.

Successive petitions for post-conviction relief are allowed only if a court finds there is sufficient reason a ground for relief was not originally or adequately asserted.

First District Judge Steve Verby dismissed the second petition, ruling that Kuehl failed to establish a sufficient reason for its filing. Kuehl appealed, arguing the dismissal order did not make clear whether the district court overlooked his asserted sufficient reasons or simply found them legally insufficient.

But appellate Judge Karen Lansing held that Verby had clearly recognized and considered Kuehl’s alleged sufficient reasons, according to a five-page unpublished opinion released on Tuesday.

Chief Judge David Gratton and John Melanson concurred.

Although the disposition of the successive petition made it unnecessary for the appeals court to consider the merits of Kuehl’s claims, Lansing took issue with his allegation that his attorney erred by failing to argue that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the jury’s verdict.

Lansing, citing a prior ruling in Kuehl’s case, said the invalidity of such a claim was so blatant that it needed to be addressed.

“We there held that even assuming that the admission of certain trial evidence was error, there was no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to Kuehl’s conviction in light of the other compelling evidence of his guilt,” Lansing wrote in a footnote.

Kuehl is imprisoned at the Idaho Correctional Center in Kuna, according to the Idaho Department of Correction. Kuehl is eligible for parole in 2034, at which point he’ll be 84 years old.