Homicide charges for Stinson wait on CDA judge’s decision

Public defenders have asked a Coeur d’Alene court to deny a request to add murder to the charges faced by Daniel Stinson who is accused of killing a man in midtown in April and leading police on a high-speed chase.

In a Thursday hearing, Coeur d’Alene Magistrate Mayli Walsh was supposed to decide if several charges including murder and attempted murder could be added to the charges already faced by Stinson, but Kootenai County public defenders put the brakes on the process.

Stinson is accused in an April 16 fatal shooting in midtown, and leading police on a high-speed chase that ended in a wrecked Idaho State Police patrol car before his arrest near Gozzer Ranch on U.S. 97.

Stinson allegedly used a gun to hijack a vehicle in a Coeur d’Alene neighborhood and drive to midtown around 7 p.m. where he allegedly shot and killed Noah Y. Peterson, 41, and shot Jeremy S. Pardue, 49. Pardue was treated and released from Kootenai Health.

Although Stinson was charged with robbery, aggravated battery and burglary — all felonies — he has not charged in Peterson’s death.

In an amended criminal complaint prosecutors asked to add at least charges including concealing evidence, first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.

Public defender Jay Logsdon argued Thursday that the charges should not be added to the existing complaint because he didn’t think probable cause had been established, and the latest charges are separate from the initial charges.

“... Police arrive for the report of a shooting,” Logsdon wrote in his objection. “They find one man deceased and another man who had been shot. No one on scene could identify the shooter. The car used by the shooter is allegedly the one that had been stolen. The event forms the basis of (the new charges).”

Prosecutors said they wanted the new charges added because they stem from a months-long investigation by police completed after the April charges were filed.

Logsdon said that Stinson, when he was arrested after the wreck near Gozzer, did not have the murder weapon.

“Stinson is located in the vehicle,” he wrote. “He does not have a gun.”

Logsdon argued that the robbery, burglary, car theft and eluding resulted in Stinson’s arrest and were charged accordingly.

The shootings were separate and must be charged separately, if there is enough evidence, and not ushered in on the coattails of the initial charges.

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled July 7 in First District Court.