POLSON – A 53-year-old Ronan man has been given a four-year suspended sentence for the August 2009 stabbing death of a former friend in a Ronan bar.
Allen Metzger was sentenced by District Judge Nels Swandal on Monday.
Metzger entered a “no contest” plea to negligent homicide last month, and has maintained he was acting in self defense when he stabbed James Finch.
Metzger’s attorney, Lance Jasper of Missoula, says on Aug. 16, Finch followed Metzger into the bathroom at a bar and attacked him. Metzger says he used the knife to defend himself against a man who outweighed him by 50 pounds.
The case was one of the first investigated since the Montana Legislature adopted a new law shifting the burden of proof in a self-defense case to the prosecution.