Finlay's sentence upheld

COEUR d’ALENE — Tyler Finlay’s 15-year prison sentence will remain in place, and the Lakeland High graduate convicted of manslaughter will stay in prison for at least another three years before a parole board decides if he should be released, a judge ordered Friday.

Finlay, a former Lakeland football standout who was convicted last year for the accidental killing of Coeur d’Alene businessman Jeffrey Marfice, is serving a four- to 15-year sentence.

He asked District Judge Lansing Haynes to reduce his sentence, but Haynes denied the request, thereby upholding the sentence of a previous judge whom Finlay had accused of bias.

Public defender Anne Taylor said her client is remorseful, willing to undergo treatment for a drug and alcohol addiction she said was behind the June 18, 2017, assault on Marfice.

“He has been to prison. He is raw and stripped down,” Taylor said. “You have a different young man before you today.”

Taylor asked Haynes to retain jurisdiction in the case. Added to the time Finlay has already served, an additional year in a prison rehab program as part of a retained jurisdiction would amount to a two-year fixed sentence, she said.

Judge John Mitchell, who sentenced Finlay, was not opposed to retaining jurisdiction if the time in a prison rehab program could have been longer than a year, Taylor said.

“If the court chose to retain at this time, (Finlay) has a chance to prove he can learn and embrace programs,” she said.

Haynes, however, deferred to Mitchell’s earlier ruling, and kept the 4-15-year sentence in place.

He said Mitchell had already considered all the evidence when he set the four-year minimum time behind bars.

“He did that with consideration of the factors,” Haynes said.

Finlay and his counsel accused Mitchell of bias after last year’s trial, and asked Mitchell not be allowed to oversee Friday’s Rule 35 hearing. Mitchell denied the allegation, but voluntarily dismissed himself from the proceeding.