Jury trial for Harley Park still scheduled for June 6
BY TERRY SMITH
A first-degree murder charge in the beating death 13 years ago of a prominent Fairfield businessman as been reduced to involuntary manslaughter.
Rather than the possibility of a life prison sentence, defendant Harley R. Park now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a sentence that he may have already served because he has remained incarcerated without bond since the death of 61-year-old Lynn Stevenson on Sept. 3, 2003. Park has spent the majority of that time court-committed to the State Hospital South mental institution in Blackfoot.
Park, now 38, was discharged from State Hospital South in April of 2015 after doctors there determined that his mental condition had improved to the point that he could assist with his own defense at trial. Since his release from State Hospital South, Park has been held at the Elmore County Jail in Mountain Home because Camas County does not have a jail facility.
Although the case originated in Camas County, jurisdiction was transferred to Blaine County by court order in September of 2015. Camas County, however, remains responsible for the costs of Park’s defense and related costs.
An amended criminal complaint against Park, charging him with involuntary manslaughter, accuses him of “willfully and unlawfully using force and violence upon the person of Lynn Stevenson by repeatedly striking and/or kicking Lynn Stevenson in the head and torso, and in the commission of that unlawful act, produced the death of Lynn Stevenson.”
A police report filed in 2003 by Camas County Sheriff Dave Sanders states that Park admitted to killing Stevenson because Stevenson was “the devil.”
The death occurred at a nine-hole golf course Stevenson owned near Soldier Mountain Ski Resort north of Fairfield. According to Sanders’ report, Park was living and working for Stevenson at the golf course at the time Stevenson was killed.
The amended charge reducing the crime to involuntary manslaughter was filed by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, assigned as special prosecutor, in Blaine County 5th District Court on May 3.
Park was arraigned on the new charge in 5th District Court in Hailey on Monday. Appearing in court in the custody of the Camas County Sheriff’s Office, Park pleaded not guilty to the new charge.
A jury trial, scheduled prior to reduction of the charge, remains scheduled to begin before Judge Robert J. Elgee in Blaine County 5th District Court on June 6.
The reasons for the charge being reduced were not available by press deadline Tuesday from the court record, from defense attorney Douglas Nelson or the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.
Also on Monday, Elgee ordered that a new mental evaluation be conducted by Dr. Chad Sombke, a clinical psychologist in Meridian. The order authorized payment of $1,200 to Sombke, with Camas County responsible for payment.
Even without a conviction, a judge can order that a person be committed under civil order to a mental facility if the court determines that the person is a danger to society.