Meister to be back on stand today

MOSCOW - Accused killer David J. Meister took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks, exhaled and stepped off the witness stand Monday with a weary look about his face.

The 28-year-old then huddled briefly with his two attorneys before all three broke into smiles. Such appeared to be the emotional rigors of testifying on your own behalf in a murder-for-hire retrial that's entered its fourth week.

Meister, who already spent more than eight hours in front of the jury of five women and nine men, is scheduled to take the stand again at 9 a.m. today.

Latah County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Evans is expected to continue cross- examination that had Meister admitting left him almost as tired as he was nine years ago. That's when he claims to have been coerced by authorities into falsely confessing he killed 21-year-old Tonya Hart on Dec. 11, 2001.

Also tentatively scheduled to appear today as a witness for the defense is Lane Thomas, the other man Meister's attorneys claim admitted to pulling the trigger. But it remains uncertain whether Thomas, sentenced to prison on a conviction not related to the Hart case, will say anything.

Represented by Moscow attorney D. Ray Barker, Thomas has been waiting in the Latah County Jail to take the witness stand after being subpoenaed by defense attorneys Thomas Whitney of Moscow and Scott Chapman of Lewiston.

Jesse (Shorty) Linderman, Hart's boyfriend and the man the prosecution claims hired Meister to do the killing, already appeared and invoked his right to remain silent. Linderman is represented by Moscow attorney Charles Kovis.

"I never said I was going to cap someone in the face," Meister said when asked by Evans about what one witness said earlier in the retrial.

"He's lying." "That's not true." "I think he's mistaken." "I think he's being less than truthful." "He's gravely mistaken." "He's just wrong." "What he testified to is not true."

Meister responded with those claims and more as Evans recited earlier statements from other witnesses. The testimony, combined with physical evidence, according to the prosecution, points to Meister as the man who wore Osiris skateboard shoes while walking to Hart's trailer north of town, who fired twice after Hart answered her back door, and then left footprints in the snow while fleeing.

About nine months after the shooting, Meister testified, he confessed to doing just that - but only after investigators subjected him to intense questioning, said the evidence all pointed to him and suggested it would be best to confess to avoid a death penalty.

"If you didn't shoot Tonya Hart, why did you tell (authorities) you did?" Chapman asked Meister during direct examination.

"I didn't think I had a choice, in the state of mind I was," Meister said, explaining he feared a SWAT team would sooner or later break into his home and arrest him. "So I told them what they wanted to hear. I did feel I was saving my life."

Meister, 18 at the time of the shooting and 19 when he claims to have made the false confession to investigators, was convicted by a jury in 2003 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Hart's death. But the conviction was vacated upon appeal by the Idaho Supreme Court.

Although no murder weapon was found, investigators determined Hart died by bullets fired from a 9-mm Hi-Point semi-automatic pistol.

Meister admitted to buying such a gun four days before Hart died, but he said he sold it to an unidentified man at a party prior to the killing. He claims to have been partying with friends when Hart was shot.

But Evans, in her opening statement, said Meister was drinking beer at home and bolstering his courage before executing Hart for a promised $1,000, with another $100 if he did it before Christmas.

Linderman was initially charged with conspiracy in Hart's death, but the charges were dropped once Meister recanted his confession. Chapman and Thomas contend Meister was pressured by investigators who fed him bits and pieces of evidence. Around that information, Meister testified, he eventually relented.

"You're just making this up as you go?" Chapman asked his client.

"Yeah," Meister answered.

The retrial, in part, is occurring because Meister has stuck to his false-confession defense. Second District Judge John R. Stegner of Moscow wouldn't allow Meister to pursue a so-called alternate perpetrator defense. Stegner also said he might be lenient at sentencing if Meister admitted guilt. Both of the Stegner's stands, the higher court ruled, were wrong - thus the retrial.

Second District Judge Carl B. Kerrick of Lewiston is conducting the retrial. If all goes as scheduled, the case may go to the jury later this week.

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Johnson may be contacted at djohnson@lmtribune.com or (208) 883-0564.