Metzgers lawyer calls for dismissal

POLSON — Because the crime scene was destroyed by employees before law enforcement could properly gather evidence, deliberate homicide charges against Allen Metzger should be dismissed, said Lance P. Jasper in a motion filed last Tuesday in the Lake County District Court.

Jasper, attorney for Metzger, alleges that because the crime scene was cleaned it “deprived the State and [Metzger] the opportunity to obtain any physical evidence,” which “leaves the State with only circumstantial evidence.”

Metzger stands accused of deliberate homicide in the Aug. 16 stabbing death of 50-year old James Finch at the Valley Club bar in Ronan.

In his motion to dismiss, Jasper outlines 15 “undisputed facts” upon which he built the argument for dismissal.

Among the facts Jasper outlined are: Metzger ignoring Finch during his visit to the Valley Club, Finch’s apparent interest in Metzger, Finch following Metzger into the restroom, physical evidence of Finch’s alleged assault on Metzger and the crime scene’s destruction by Valley Club employees.

Because “[t]here was no surveillance video to depict the events that occurred within the…restroom…[and] no physical evidence from the incident scene that can be admitted to reconstruct the events that occurred…[t]he State can only produce circumstantial evidence of what occurred in the restroom…” Jasper wrote in the brief.

According to Jasper, Metzger has “claimed to have acted with justifiable force at every stage of the investigation.” Metzger, during his transport to the Lake County Jail, said he was “protecting [his] life,” Finch “kills people for a living,” “[Finch] had [Metzger] cornered in the bathroom” and “[Finch] would have beat [Metzger] to death right there in that bar.”

Jasper alleges that Finch entered the restroom with the intent to assault Metzger and any argument by the state to the contrary is impossible given what Jasper calls “undisputed facts.”

Coupled with Metzger’s constitutional right to not testify at trial and incriminate himself, Jasper wrote that the case falls under the Montana law which says “A person is justified in the use of force or threat to use force against another when and to the extent that he reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to prevent or terminate such other’s unlawful entry into or attack upon an occupied structure.”

County attorney Mitch Young had no comments on the motion.

Metzger’s next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13 at the Lake County Court House with Judge Nels Swandal, of Livingston, presiding.

Swandal was appointed to the case after Judges Kim Christopher and C.B. McNeil were excused from the case.