Lawyer argues patriotism
Jury gets case of cocaine user
By Scott North, Herald Writer

The lawyer for an admitted cocaine user now on trial for a
brutal murder urged a Snohomish County jury Thursday to do the
patriotic thing, and consider acquitting his client.
Dale Robert Lyon, 38, is charged with firstdegree murder in
connection with a May 12, 1996, beating that led to the death of
Michael Courtney, 32.
Jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon, and were
expected to resume Monday.
In closing arguments, Everett defense attorney Mark Mestel
acknowledged that Lyon is not a particularly sympathetic figure.
The defendant is a cocaine user, and the man he's charged
with killing was a drug dealer, Mestel said.
A "sense of vigilante justice" could prompt some people to
think society would best be served by convicting Lyon, regardless of
the evidence, he said.
But the American system of justice, and the freedoms it
protects, requires jurors to see Lyon not just as a drug user, "but a
human being," Mestel said.
"The Fourth of July really does mean more than a picnic, or
barbecues or fireworks," he said.
But all the evidence in this case points to Lyon as the man
responsible for crushing Courtney's skull, deputy prosecutor Craig
Matheson argued.
The man admitted hitting Courtney with a heavy wooden
dowel, a confession caught on tape, he pointed out.
"What you've got here, folks, in real clear and uncertain
terns, is a dope killing," Matheson said.
But Mestel said there is reason to doubt that Lyon is the
man responsible.
The defendant did hit Courtney with the dowel, but that was
in self defense while Courtney was attempting to collect on a drug
debt, the attorney argues.
Evidence shows the fatal blows came from another, still
unidentified weapon, he said.
Mestel alleged that weapon was wielded by the prosecutor's
key witness in the case, another drug dealer who had reason to
dislike both Lyon and the victim.
Matheson countered that Mestel's theory of the case boiled
down to "some other dude did it."
"Folks, if you buy that, walk this guy, acquit him," Matheson
said. "But if you believe that, I've got some land to show you. I've got
some bridges to sell."