Carson City District Attorney to retry man now on parole in 1995 slaying
Submitted by editor on Thu, 12/01/2016 - 1:43pm
Carson City's District Attorney said Thursday he would retry a man on parole for charges related to the death of William Gibson that happened more than 20 years ago.
Peter Elvik, 36, will be re-tried for charges stemming from the August 31, 1995 death of William Gibson, said Carson City District Attorney Jason Woodbury in a news release.
The body of Gibson, 63, was discovered at the Carson City Rifle and Pistol range. He was shot multiple times from a shotgun, while his car and personal belongings were stolen. Investigators soon discovered Elvik in southern California, where he had driven Gibson’s car after shooting him. Elvik claimed he had killed Gibson in self-defense. He was 14 years old at the time.
A jury in 1996 convicted Elvik of first degree murder and robbery with the use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole for the murder and a consecutive term of incarceration for the robbery.
After a series of appeals, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro reversed Elvik’s convictions in 2013, determining the jury had not been properly instructed. The federal court ruled that due to Elvik’s age, the trial judge needed to instruct the jury that the prosecution was required to prove by “clear evidence” Elvik knew the “wrongfulness” of his conduct at the time Gibson was killed. The decision was appealed to a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit which eventually upheld the reversal, 2 to 1.
That put the case back with the Carson City District Attorney’s Office. The federal court gave Woodbury 30 days to decide whether to retry the case. Woodbury stated his office had been working since that time to locate witnesses who testified in the original trial. “We prepared for the worst and had already assembled a team to jump on this as soon as we had a final ruling,” Woodbury said in a news release. “Our investigator, Mitch Pier, did a phenomenal job tracking people down. We’re much further along than I thought we’d be at this point.”
But Woodbury indicated he considered more than just whether he would be able to reassemble the original evidence.
“My team has penciled out a budget of a little more than $100,000 to retry this case. That’s more than I’ll be able to absorb in my existing, approved budget," said Woodbury in the news release. "I’ll need to ask the Board of Supervisors for an augmentation to cover at least some of that. Otherwise, I’d have to cut staff, which I’m not really in a position to do with our current workload.”
There is also the issue of punishment. After serving nearly 21 years in prison, Elvik was granted parole in June. Woodbury said he “wouldn’t expect” to serve much, if any, additional time even if he is convicted at the retrial.
Despite this, Woodbury said he determined the benefits of retrying the case outweighed the challenges and the costs. “There’s a public safety concern, for one,” he explained, noting that if he did not retry the case, Elvik’s conviction “legally vanishes.” Woodbury added, “He would not be a convicted felon; he could own a gun; he would not be supervised on parole; and an employment background check would show no criminal convictions. That concerns me.”
Under the federal court’s order, the new trial must begin within 120 days from Woodbury’s decision to retry Elvik. Woodbury said he expected the trial to last about three weeks. He plans to try the case personally, along with Deputy District Attorney, Tyson League.
Asked about the strength of his case, Woodbury declined to specifically comment.
“We’re assembling the evidence as best we can and preparing for trial as best we can," he said in the news release. "Tyson and I will present the best case we can at trial, and then the decision will be in the hands of a jury. As it should be.”
