Temporary release denied in case
Temporary release denied in case
Posted: Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007 – 09:23:45 am PDT
By KEITH KINNAIRD
News editor
Manslaughter trial set for Sept. 10
SANDPOINT — An Oldtown man awaiting trial on vehicular manslaughter and drug possession charges is being denied a furlough to attend an in-patient treatment program in southern Idaho.
District Judge Lansing Haynes denied Jason Charles Miller’s request on Friday to postpone his manslaughter case so he could enter the treatment program.
Miller’s four-day trial on a charge of felony vehicular manslaughter is scheduled to start on Sept. 10 in 1st District Court. He is also awaiting trial on a meth possession charge resulting from the deadly crash and another possession charge stemming from a more recent arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Miller’s defense attorneys asked the court earlier this month to postpone the manslaughter trial because it conflicted with their client’s enrollment in a treatment program in Gooding. Attorneys Peter Jones and Doug Phelps contend Miller has been diagnosed as bipolar and a meth addict.
The attorneys told the court on Friday the program would address Miller’s health issues, which would put him in a better position to assist in his own defense or contemplate potential plea agreements.
Bonner County Deputy Prosecutor Jim Stow objected to Miller’s temporary release, citing the timing of the defense request.
Haynes, ruling from the bench in Coeur d’Alene, said he saw no verification of the dual diagnosis in documents the defense submitted to backstop its request. The defense motion was denied.
Miller, 26, was charged following a deadly July 2006 crash on Highway 57 north of Priest River. The state alleges Miller caused the wreck by passing vehicles as a car ahead of him turned into a waste collection site.
Richard Martin Boge, a 78-year-old resident of Spokane, Wash., died after Miller’s Ford Ranger pickup truck plowed into the side of his Cadillac sedan. Boge was the father of Sandpoint Councilman Michael Boge.
Miller is accused of being high on meth and possessing the stimulant at the time of the crash. The other pending charges were the product of a May 5 traffic stop in Priest River.
Miller was free on bond in the manslaughter case when he was arrested last spring.
