Court's ruling in murder case may affect ability to seek death penalty

The state Supreme Court on Thursday released a former Bainbridge Island minister convicted of killing his wife from a life-without-parole sentence in an opinion that could limit prosecutors' ability to seek the death penalty in some cases.

In a 6-3 opinion, the court narrowly interpreted the circumstances in which aggravating factors can be applied to first-degree murder cases, a requirement for death sentences.

The case involved Nicholas D. Hacheney, who was convicted in 2002 of strangling his wife with a plastic bag and then burning down his house. Because his wife, Dawn, was already dead when the house caught fire, the arson was not committed "in the course of" the murder and did not qualify as an aggravating factor in the "plain language" of the law, wrote Justice Bobbe Bridge.

Bridge wrote that the ruling "remains true to the plain meaning of the statutory language, and it does not create an unwarranted expansion of the set of cases eligible for the death penalty or life without the possibility of release. We conclude that, while he may have committed arson in the course of covering up a murder, as a matter of law, Hacheney did not murder his wife in the course of arson."

Aggravating factors in murder cases can include assassination of public officials, multiple victims killed in a "common scheme," and murder committed "in the course" of another serious crime, like robbery or kidnapping.

As a result, Hacheney will return to Kitsap County to receive a new sentence of between 20 to 26 years later this year. Although Hacheney's crime qualified for the death penalty when he was originally tried, Kitsap County prosecutors did not press for capital punishment.

In a dissent, Justice Barbara Madsen objected to the narrow interpretation. "The arson was clearly intended to make the murder investigation more difficult, which it did," she wrote. "Certainly, these circumstances justify a more enhanced punishment than that which is available for first-degree murder."

The state criminal defense attorneys' association, which had filed a brief on behalf of Hacheney, considered the case an important test of the death-penalty law.

"[Aggravated first-degree murder] is the only crime that carries the potential for the death sentence. That's why it's important for the court to do what they did today — read the plain language of the statute. It could have opened up a much larger class of cases for the death penalty," said Jeff Ellis of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Hacheney, minister of a church, was having an affair with a congregant when he brought his wife home from a party on Christmas Eve in 1997, according to the ruling. Prosecutors allege that he gave his wife a heavy dose of Benadryl and then lay awake until he heard God tell him to "take the land," a Biblical term interpreted as a spur to action.

He left Christmas wrapping paper and propane canisters near a space heater and departed for a hunting trip, according to evidence presented at trial. The Kitsap County coroner initially ruled that Dawn Hacheney, whose body was badly burned, asphyxiated when her larynx closed in a flash fire.

But in 2001, Hacheney's lover told police that Hacheney had confessed to killing Dawn with a plastic bag and setting the fire. After his wife's death, Hacheney had affairs with at least three church members, according to trial testimony cited in the court opinion.

Hacheney's defense lawyers attacked the case as one built on supposition and rumor among church members, but a jury convicted him of aggravated first-degree murder. He still disputes the state's version of his wife's death, Ellis said.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com