Manslaughter trial begins
COEUR d’ALENE — The deaths of three people, whose boat was struck two years ago on Lake Coeur d’Alene, were the result of one man’s negligence as he operated a fast-moving ski boat in the dark while intoxicated, prosecutors said, in opening statements Thursday in the manslaughter trial of Dennis D. Magner.
Magner, 52, a former Spokane advertising executive, is charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter for the 2016 deaths of Caitlin Breeze, 21, of Spokane; Justin Luhr, 34, of Medical Lake; and Justin Honken, 31, of Post Falls.
The crash sent Magner’s boat airborne and ripped the top off the victims’ boat, according to court documents.
Defense attorneys, however, said the defendant, a family man and father of two, wasn’t drunk at 9:15 p.m., July 30, when he motored his Mastercraft boat south at 20 mph while returning to his lake home at Driftwood Point to have a barbecue with friends.
Dennis Magner took the proper precautions on the lake, defense attorney Carl Oreskovich told 14 jurors in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court. His navigation lights were on, Oreskovich said, and he motored at a safe speed when his watercraft struck an unlighted boat nearly head-on in the channel south of Stevens Point.
District Judge Cynthia K.C. Meyer started Thursday’s proceedings, which followed three days of jury selection, by ordering that some statements made by Jonathan Sweat, an occupant of Magner’s boat, wouldn’t be allowed as testimony.
Other statements that attorneys argued shouldn’t be allowed as testimony, Meyer said, could be heard by jurors.
Sweat had told investigators that he was driving the boat, but changed his story when he learned the Formula boat struck by the Mastercraft — Magner’s boat — had been occupied and that three people died.
Initially, it appeared to the occupants of the Mastercraft, and to deputies investigating the crash that happened after dark about 4 miles south of town, that the other boat, a Formula pleasure craft, had been unoccupied.
It was not until days later that the three victims were found on the lake bottom. They each suffered broken bones, fractured or severed vertebrae and skull fractures, but according to the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s office, drowning was the cause of death, Kootenai County Prosecutor Barry McHugh said.
Evidence shows the boat may have been under power, but that is contested, Oreskovich said, and maybe it doesn’t matter.
What is not contested he said is that one boat — Magner’s boat — had its lights on — while the other did not.
Witnesses, Oreskovich said, saw the Mastercraft with its navigational lights on, but they did not see the Formula boat bobbing in the waves in the dark.
“One boat was out there with navigational lights on, and another was out there without navigational lights on, that couldn’t be seen by anyone,” he said.
The bulk of Thursday’s testimony was from Skye-Symphony Neversorry, an occupant of Magner’s boat, who told jurors that she saw Magner drink no more than one beer from a koozie in the hours leading up to the crash.
Neversorry said the other occupants, Sweat and Alex Gutierrez, didn’t drink but that she had shared three bottles of a peach vodka with Paige Archer, Gutierrez’s girlfriend.
Deputies at the scene testified in court records that Magner was unsteady after the crash, had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech indicating he was drunk. He told deputies he had 10 beers, and that he was too drunk to drive. He wasn’t given a sobriety test because deputies were told he wasn’t behind the wheel.
An involuntary manslaughter conviction carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The second day of testimony in the jury trial, that is expected to last three weeks, will begin at 9 a.m. today at the Justice Building at 324 W. Garden Way.