By Kate Reardon
Herald Writer
COUPEVILLE — A Camano Island woman sentenced this week to 21 years in prison for killing her live-in boyfriend is appealing her murder and manslaughter convictions.
Island County prosecutor Greg Banks said he’s not worried because he believes he has a solid case against Linda H. Miley.
Miley, 58, was convicted of shooting her boyfriend, Jack J. Pearson, five times with a .38-caliber pistol in the early morning hours of Dec. 19, 1997.
Banks said it could be a year or more before the case is heard in the Washington State Court of Appeals Division 1, because Miley will be assigned a new attorney who will have to review the case and get up to speed.
"I’m confident that the convictions will be held up on appeal," he said Friday.
Miley’s attorney, Tom Pacher, argues in the appeal that the court allowed evidence during the trial that was inaccurate, misleading and laden with speculation.
Pacher said gruesome and enlarged photos of the victim and crime scene tainted the jury, and that computer-generated animation that gave a layout of the crime scene and likely scenario as to how events transpired should not have been admitted into the record.
Banks said that his photos and computer animation were viewed and approved during a pretrial hearing.
"We went through every photograph one at a time, and I explained to the court why they were relevant," Banks said. "The judge ruled on each individual photograph. I think the judge ruled correctly. We didn’t offer some of the more gruesome photos out of respect for the jury."
Banks said the computer animation was a first for his office. The animation gave a layout of the crime scene and allowed the viewer to fly through the house and hover over evidence, he said.
To support the case for appeal, Pacher listed ineffective assistance of counsel, a reason that surprised Banks since Pacher would be referring to himself.
Pacher said he adds that as a routine matter so his clients can challenge it if they desire.
"I think it would be arrogant of me not to include that issue in a notice of appeal," he said.
Miley, who dated Pearson for six years, told neighbors that she had seen Pearson struggling with a masked bandit in the kitchen of their Camano Island home on Vesper Way. Miley later changed her story and told detectives she shot Pearson in self-defense.
Banks said Miley’s self-defense argument fell apart after experts were able to prove that Pearson was on the floor behind a bar stool when one of the bullets hit him. In closing arguments during the trial, Banks lay on the floor behind the bullet-damaged bar stool and used a dowel to show jurors the path that one of the bullets had taken.
The defense highlighted Miley’s past in Mississippi, saying she had an abusive childhood and marriage, suffered from a dissociative disorder and was not capable of forming the mental intent to kill.
But after three days of deliberations, the jury found Miley guilty of the alternative count of felony murder in the second degree.
Miley was also charged with first-degree theft because she allegedly took $19,500 from Pearson’s safe after she shot him. The jury found her innocent on that charge.
You can call Herald Writer Kate Reardon at 425-339-3455 or send e-mail to reardon@heraldnet.com.
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