CLEARLAKE – A man sent to prison for murdering his girlfriend had his conviction overturned last week by a state appellate court, making him eligible for a new trial.

 

In February 2006 David Garlow Deason, 68, was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of 48-year-old Marie Parlet, according to court records.

 

Judge Richard Martin sentenced Deason to 50 years to life in state prison for the murder, which court records state occurred on Dec. 6, 2004.

 

The couple reportedly had a disagreement earlier on the day of the murder, according to court documents. Deason left the mobile home they shared and returned later that evening, intoxicated, after which he shot Parlet once in the chest and once in the back, from a distance of about 18 inches.

 

Deason, whose blood-alcohol was reported in court documents as 0.27 – 0.08 is considered legally drunk for driving purposes – admitted to sheriff's deputies that he shot Parlet.

 

However, on Dec. 14 the state's First Appellate District Court overturned Deason's conviction, ruling that the trial court “erred in excluding evidence of his intoxication.”

 

The appellate court also faulted the trial court for not instructing the jury that it could consider his intoxication in deciding whether Parlet's murder was deliberate or premeditated.

 

Martin, according to court records, ruled that no evidence of Deason's alcohol consumption could be presented.

 

During the trial Deason's defense attorney, J. David Markham, asked Judge Martin to allow him to call a toxicologist, who Markham said would explain that Deason would have consumed as many as 14 drinks to reach the level of intoxication he had on the night of the murder.

 

The prosecution, Markham said in court transcripts, was allowed to prove that Deason “wasn't intoxicated or under the influence of any alcohol that day” because no conflicting evidence was allowed.

 

Martin denied the request for the toxicologist, although Markham later attempted once again to have the information admitted by requesting that the jury consider the intoxication issue during deliberation.

 

Markham argued that the role of alcohol was important in determining whether or not Deason acted with premeditation, a necessary element of the first-degree murder charge. Court records showed that Martin turned down that request as well.

 

The appellate court found that the evidence of Deason's alcohol consumption was critical to the issues of premeditation and deliberation, and that the trial court “abused its discretion” by preventing that evidence from being admitted.

 

That error, the justices wrote, was compounded by the trial court's refusal to give the jury instructions that Markham requested.

 

Further, the appellate court found that the prosecution “presented relatively weak evidence of premeditation.”

 

In the face of that weak premeditation evidence, the appellate court wrote that evidence of intoxication – specifically, that Deason had a blood alcohol level of 0.27 an hour and a half after his arrest – became even more important.

 

“... It is hard to imagine any reasonable jury which would not assign significant weight to evidence indicating this massive level of intoxication on the part of the defendant within an hour and a half of the shooting – especially if they had been instructed, as defendant requested – that they could consider such evidence in deciding whether the defendant acted with an intent to kill, or acted with deliberation and premeditation,” the appellate court decision states.

 

Those factors were critical to the central issue in the case, according to the court – “whether the defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree, or only of a lesser level of homicide.”

 

The argument of prosecutor John Langan that there was “scant evidence of drinking and no evidence tying it to appellant's mental state” further tipped the scales toward a finding of prejudice against Deason, the court decided.

 

“The missing evidence, the missing instruction, literally stripped the appellant of a potential defense to the charge of first-degree murder,” the court wrote. “The prosecutor knew it, and hammered the point home to the jury.”

 

The appellate court's conclusion is that, without the court's errors, Deason would have had a better outcome to his trial. The court therefore reversed the judgment against Deason.

 

Deason also had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which is a prisoner's way of objecting to his or imprisonment based on factual or legal issues, according to LectLaw.com. That petition was dismissed as moot in light of the reversal on Dec. 14.

 

There is no word yet on whether or not Deason will receive a new trial or if he has actually been released from prison.

 

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

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