SPOKANE -- A man facing trial for murder may or may not face the death penalty depending on what side of the Spokane – Stevens County Line a judge determines his trial should take place.

Christopher Devlin is accused of gunning down a witness the day before he was to offer key testimony in court against him. In 2006 Devlin was on trial for breaking into a man's home and assaulting him.

The witness, Daniel Heily, was supposed to take the stand and testify on May 14th but never showed up. Detectives say that's because the night before, Devlin shot Heily and left his body in his pickup truck.

Investigators suspected Devlin's involvement even before Heily's remains were discovered.

“They went down and located the principal players in the trial, started doing investigations and interviews and based on those investigations and interviews were able to develop probable accuse to arrest the two subjects," Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said.

One of those two subjects, Carl Hoskins implicated Devlin in the killing but then surprised investigators by saying the victim wasn't killed in Deer Park where his body was found. Devlin, according to Hoskins, allegedly fired the fatal shots several miles away across the Stevens County line.

On Thursday Devlin's defense team asked that their client’s trial be moved to Stevens County but the prosecutor there says he doesn't have the budget for a one point five million dollar death penalty case.

“We believe the proper venue is Stevens County and this case should be moved to Stevens County because of Mr. Devlin's constitutional rights to be tried where the crime was committed,” Defense attorney Roger Hunko said.

Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen disagrees since from the beginning of the case Spokane County has taken the lead on the case since Heily’s body was found in his pickup truck in a parking lot that technically was in Spokane County.

“This is a Spokane County case, they started this prosecution, the prosecution here is proper here and it's my position judge that I will not file this case in Stevens County,” Rasmussen said.

Now the court is wrestling with whether or not it's legal to try Devlin here in Spokane even though the homicide probably occurred in Stevens County and Christopher Devlin may escape a death penalty case because of a few hundred yards and geographic boundaries on a map.