Idaho Supreme Court orders new trial for Meister
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for a 26-year-old artist sentenced to life in prison for killing a Latah County woman at her trailer home in 2001.
In an opinion Tuesday, the court said David Meister was unfairly convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder after the district court applied the wrong standard when excluding another possible suspect’s confessions.
Court documents show there were at least two reports that another man confessed to the shooting.
Tonya Hart was shot twice at point-blank range on the night of on Dec. 11, 2001, when she opened the back door of her mobile home north of Moscow. She was 21.
Meister initially told police he had been paid $1,100 by Hart’s boyfriend, Jesse Linderman, to kill Hart but then recanted and has since maintained his innocence.
Conspiracy charges filed against Linderman were dropped for lack of evidence, court documents said.
Second District Judge John Stegner sentenced Meister to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder and another 40 years for the conspiracy charge in 2003.
Stegner allowed the jury to hear the taped confession, and he read extensively from a printed transcript before sentencing Meister.
Meister testified at trial that police coerced him into confessing by threatening him with the death penalty.
He appealed his conviction and life sentence in September 2003, accusing the judge of committing numerous errors in his case. His Moscow attorney, Tom Whitney, asked the Idaho Supreme Court to review virtually the entire case.
Whitney contended Stegner was wrong to impose a sentence of life without parole, and to refuse to hold a hearing about purported evidence that another person shot Hart.
In an October 2007 opinion, the Idaho Court of Appeals found the district court had committed errors, but did not order a new trial. The Idaho Supreme Court later reviewed the case and determined Meister should have been allowed to present evidence that another man confessed to the shooting.
Justices said court records contained two reports from people who said they heard another man confess to the crime. “One is a police report taken from an inmate in Spokane County. The other is a handwritten statement taken by the Latah County Sheriff’s Office, along with the officer’s notes,” the high court said in its opinion.
Meister was 19 and working as a tattoo apprentice in Moscow at the time of the slaying, said his mother, Leah Meister of Bonners Ferry.
“Just because he was convicted did not make him guilty,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “He did not kill that girl. My family has gone through absolute hell these past seven years.”
The victim’s father, Barry Hart of Moscow, could not be reached Tuesday. A listed phone number for a Moscow residence was disconnected.
During a 2003 sentencing hearing, Barry Hart called Meister a sociopath and a cold-blooded murderer.