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Do you remember the O.J. Simpson jury trial that took an unbelievable 8 1/2 months to complete?  Well, the trial of Amanda Knox, an American student accused of murder in Italy, just passed that 8 1/2 month mark and may take as many as 10 months to complete.   Along with her Italian boyfriend, Amanda is accused of killing her British roommate Meridith Kercher.

Amanda Knox, a UW student from Seattle, is currently defending a charge of Murder in an Italian courtroom.

The trial began on January 16th, 2009 in the town of Perugia, Italy.  Knox was studying in Italy for her junior year.  She is a student at the University of Washington in Seattle.  I wrote about the charges she faced early last summer in an earlier post.  At that time I did not anticipate that the trial would still be pending come fall.

Prosecutors say Kercher was killed during a sex game with Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and a third man, Rudy Hermann Guede, who was convicted of the murder last year.  According to the Italian prosecutors, Sollecito held Kercher down, while Knox threatened her with a knife. They allege Guede tried to sexually assault Kercher and then Knox fatally stabbed her in the throat.

I kind of wonder what is taking so long with this trial.  In the O.J. Simpson trial, the cause of the delay seemed to be endless “sidebars” or private meetings between the lawyers and judge.   In this case, there seem to be endless breaks.  In the summer, the court took nearly two months off before this case resumed.   In addition, the court only conducts the trial a couple of days each week due to the other cases that are going on.  In Italy, the jurors and judges also have a right to have certain witnesses recalled to the stand to testify over again.  In this case, over a 100 witness have been called.

Amanda's parents have spent much of their money on Amanda's defense. For more information visit friendsofamanda.org

I often wonder about what the delay is with certain trials that I hear about on the news.  As a young prosecutor, I called in the assistance of an assistant attorney general to help me in a murder case involving three people shot in the head.  The attorney warned me of the complexity of the trial, and indicated that it might take two weeks.   In fact, the case ended up taking only 5 days, from the opening statements to the verdict.  It seems in Ferry and Stevens County the judges accomplish a lot in each trial day.  The judges start early, and work late, and it is seldom that other cases interfere in the scheduling of an important murder trial.   I have found in bigger counties, the trials are sometimes interrupted by other business.

If I were the attorney for Amanda Knox in Italy, I would worry about everything the jury would forget from the beginning of the trial to the end.  The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that taking extended breaks in the presentation denies the defendant the right to a fair trial.   In the U.S., the 6th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right of the accused to a “speedy and public trial.”   In Herring v. New York, Supreme Court expressed concern over a delay of “two days — a period during which the judge’s memory may well have dimmed, however conscientious a note-taker he may have been.”

The September 23rd the Omak-Chronicle ran a story covering the first court hearing in U.S.A. v. Kevin I. Pakootas in Federal court in Spokane.   Kevin Pakootas is charged with Second Degree Murder for allegedly killing his wife in Inchelium, within the Colville Indian Reservation.  He is also charged with Attempted Murder of a second individual.  The Omak-Chronicle explained that the Federal court “… refused a furlough request by Pakootas to attend the funeral [of his wife]”.

I am not sure what the readers of this article made of this request.  I checked the records in the federal court house online, and a furlough request was in fact  made on 9-15-09.

I have noticed that furlough requests for funerals are often made and are often granted in Tribal Court, whereas such requests in State court are far less common.    I once represented an individual charged with attempted homicide in Tribal Court, and the defendant directed me to try to get a furlough for his uncle’s rosary.   The court granted the furlough on the condition that I personally drive the defendant to the funeral and back.  I picked my client up in Nespelem at the Tribal jail and drove him to the rosary in Inchelium and back in one evening.  My client was grateful.  My client was later acquitted of all charges.  When I tell this story to attorneys who do not practice in Tribal Court, they are often surprised.   In someways, Tribal Court is much tougher on conditions of release pending trial.  It is more common for defendants to be held without bail in Tribal Court.  In State Court, Article I, Section 20 of the Constitution prevents judges from holding clients without bail on all cases except capital offenses.

Despite the different traditions in Tribal Court versus Federal Court, I do kind of wonder about a request for a defendant to attend the funeral of an alleged victim.  I would imagine that would be denied pretty much universally.

The Washington Supreme Court ruled Friday that Tribal police officers may pursue suspects off of reservations to make arrests.    That surprised me.  I always viewed the Tribal authority to make arrests as stopping at the border.

The case is State v. Loretta Eriksen.  A Lummi Nation police officer saw Eriksen commit traffic infractions, and then followed her off the reservation and detained her.   The case analyzed what authority the officer had to detain her off of the reservation.  Eriksen was later charged with DUI.  Her criminal defense lawyer questioned the legality of her stop in district court.

The subject of police officers acting outside of their jurisdiction arises often in my practice.  People often ask me what jurisdiction a city cop has in the county and vice versa.  Under Washington law, the police agencies of Washington State permit vehicle pursuits between local governments under the  Washington Mutual Aid Peace Officers Powers Act of 1985.  The Supreme Court rationalized that the Lummi Nation could act just like a local Washington police force.  However, under Washington law, the Mutual Aid Act (RCW 10.93.120(1)) states  “[a]ny peace officer who has authority under Washington law to make an arrest . . . .”  I guess I just don’t read that as applying to the agents of sovereign political tribes.  I tend to think of Indian Tribes or Nations as separate nations, and was taught this in law school.  Would you expect the police of Mexico or Canada to follow suspects across the border and detain them in the U.S.?

The attorney for the Lummi Tribe, in a persuasive friend-of-the-court brief, argued that to interpret the Mutual Aid Act to apply to local Washington governments but not Tribes would be discriminatory.   I really wonder in the long term if Native-Americans really want their Tribes to be analogized to another local Washington government.  In just about any other court case, the attorneys for the Tribes are analogizing themselves to separate nations such as foreign countries.  Local municipal entities in Washington are not sovereign entities in any way shape or form.   All cities, whether Republic, or Okanogan, or Seattle exist because the state legislature allows them to under RCW title 35.  Local governments are not sovereign or even quasi-sovereign.

The point of the Washington Supreme Court in this case was that people should not be able to flee accountability to Tribal police officers simply by driving off of the reservation.    That is true, but it should really be up to the legislature to fix this with a new statute.  Instead, the court created this rule with a somewhat strained reading of the current Washington Mutual Aid Peace Officers Powers.   Another problem I had with this court decision is that the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Department could have eliminated this problem by cross-commissioning the Lummi Nation police.   The defense attorney for Ms. Eriksen pointed this out in his brief.   He explained: “Sheriff of Whatcom County can give tribal officers the power to arrest under Washington law by cross deputizing them, but he has not done so.”  While it is common for Sheriff’s departments to cross-deputize Tribal officers, there is also some discrimination too.  Some county or city law enforcement agents view Tribal Police departments as inferior to their departments.  In my experience, the Tribal Police departments are certainly on par with local agencies, and often exceed local agencies in manpower, and with expertise in the collection of evidence.  The decision of the Supreme Court does not mention the failure of the Whatcom County Sheriff to cross deputize the Lummi Officers.  I feel this kind of lets him off the hook.

In the years to come, certain question will need to be clarified.  If a tribal officer is permitted to leave the reservation to make a detention, how long does an officer have?  Does the officer need to be directly following the vehicle, or can he locate the suspect many hours later at his home in Republic, or West Omak, or Grand Coulee?  If the vehicle successfully eludes the Tribal Officer, can the officer then conduct a man hunt off reservation for the suspect?  What implications will this decision have for the Spokane Tribe or Colville Confederated Tribes?

I discussed other issues related to tribal sovereignty in an earlier post on June 6th.

The Spokesman-Review  ran a story Thursday raising questions about the way an attorney for the city, Rocky Treppiedi, has gone about defending the lawsuit filed by the relatives of Otto Zehm.    The attorney is defending the city of Spokane from a lawsuit filed by the relatives, while at the same time federal prosecutors are investigating and prosecuting Officer Karl Thompson who was involved in the death of Zehm.  (See earlier related blog post).    The Spokesman-Review reported that Treppiedi has been accused of “gleaning information from police and civilian witnesses called to testify before the federal grand jury and then [feeding] that information to  Thompson….”   And that this occurred even after the Spokane Police Chief imposed a gag order on her employees.   Treppiedi is not a police department employee.  At this time, it is not entirely clear how this was inappropriate.  The city attorneys will have a chance to respond in writing to this allegation, which was apparently brought by an attorney in the criminal case.  The attorney has been accused of taking a heavy-handed approach to defending the city, and the Otto Zehm case raises interesting questions of what a city attorney’s job is when defending allegations of police misconduct.  

While I understand the charges against the police, I don’t understand how the city attorney has come under so much fire.   When government employees mess up, even in a big and public way, it is still the city’s job to try to defend the matter.   After the city was sued, the city filed a formal response to the suit as required by law.  The response took the position that the officers’ response and their use of force was justified by the actions of Otto Zehm on the night in question.  The Spokesman-Review reported on this in a story entitled: “Zehm to blame for fight with officers, city says”.   The story explains how the Treppiedi’s response took the position that any use of force against Zehm was justified because Zehm resisted arrest.  When I read this at the time it seemed like the city attorney was just doing his job.  It is his job to defend the actions taken by the officers on that night in question, and he is really just the messenger.  Attorneys have clients to defend.  For some reasons this seems to be better understood by the public when an attorney is representing a person accused of a crime, rather than a governmental agency in a civil suit.

Spokane City Councilman Bob Apple criticized the way that the city defended the Zehm lawsuit.  (Listen to interview.)  He described the city’s position as an attitude of basically, ‘We’re not responsible and this life [Zehm’s] isn’t worth anything.”   He is correct that the city is denying responsibility, but when I read the entire response the city filed, I did not see the city attorney say or even suggest that Otto Zehm’s life was not worth anything.

I saw a letter to the editor Friday from Karen Dorn Steele, a former reporter for the Spokesman.   She criticizes Treppiedi, and complains about a lot of things he has done in the past that she does not like.  Fair enough.  But then she writes: “A city attorney is supposed to represent the public interest, not a few rogue elements of the police department.”   Unfortunately, the city attorney has to do both.  He has to vigorously take the position that the police acted reasonably, and the other side takes the position that the police did not.  And then the jury makes the decision.  In this case, it would not surprise me if the city is found to be liable for a million dollars or more.   But if the city is to be found liable, the public needs to know that the city did its best to minimize the damage.  You would hope that when a person is harmed by the government that the government would try to resolve this outside of court for fair compensation.  However, these discussions are rarely made public, so it is really hard to say if the city is playing hardball in this case.

Relations between the city attorney and the Spokesman-Review are not helped by the fact that Treppiedi once referred to the paper as the “local fishwrap”.  See story.   The city attorney made this statement in an email to Mayor Jim West when West faced a scandal involving sex with a high school  student.  Treppiedi told West: “Mr. Mayor – hang in there – the local fishwrap is out to sell papers, and you’re out to serve citizens.”  While it is a city attorney’s job to defend the actions by city employees, it is also his or her job to try to prevent any misconduct from happening again, and to minimize damage.    A city attorney’s job is to tell the city bluntly how the employee messed up and to work with city leaders how to prevent the problem from happening again.  But again, this is all out of public view.  I guess in the instance of his email to West, the city attorney may have been better off telling West to resign, or at least saying nothing.

I once had the chance to assist in defending a government from allegations of police misconduct.  The lawyer from the insurance company (who was paid buy the hour) did not want to tell the police the truth about how they messed up, and did not want to make any settlement offer at all.  This made him very popular with the police, but actually did the police a disservice by not helping them learn from their mistake.  I let the insurance company know how I felt.

I hope that the public doesn’t forget about the broader issues of police accountability.  Sometimes there is a highly publicized excessive force case, and people forget about the smaller cases.  Rodney King, for example, was assaulted by the police,  and received a settlement of 3.8 million.  But I am sure there were less sensational cases of police abuse where the victims could not even find an attorney, much less receive compensation.  The public deserves a police ombudsman with sufficient powers to curtail the problem.

On Monday, I did a jury trial in Spokane where a man was accused of assaulting a police officer.   The police officer tazed my client several times.  Under the police guidelines, an officer cannot use the taser unless facing “assaultive” conduct.  I suspected the police alleged that the “assault” occurred in order to justify (after the fact) the amount of force that the police used on him.  The officer testified well and seemed very credible.  The next day an independent witness came forward and stated that, unbeknownst to the officer, she had witnessed the whole incident through  her blinds.  She did not see the defendant assault the officer, and the jury believed her.

I read in last Sunday’s Spokesman-Review of the steps many pharmacies were taking to stop oxycontin robberies.  Then three days later, I read about another Spokane oxycontin robbery.  For those of you haven’t followed the news, the precise problem is addicts going into  pharmacies with a weapon demanding oxycontin pills.  Sometimes, a robber merely pretends to have a weapon or simply writes a threatening note.  According to news reports, Washington State leads the nation in oxycontin robberies. A typical oxycontin robbery job goes something as described in this police wanted photograph.  

I am sure this is not fun for the store employees.  Prior to oxycontin coming on the market, I don’t really remember ever hearing too often about pharmacy robberies.  There just is something about oxycontin pills that drives the addicts crazy in a way that morphine or percocet does not do.  The Walgreens in Spokane made national news last week when they announced the problem of oxycontin robberies was so bad in Washington that they were placing special time-delay safes in all stores.  The safes take several minutes to open – the idea being that a robber is not going to stick around for ten minutes or so.  I wonder about this idea.  What pharmacy clerk really wants to break the news to a drug-crazed armed robber that they have to wait ten minutes?  If I were a clerk I would rather just have a bottle handy  right there by the counter I could toss in a hurry.   Drug-crazed robbers are dangerous, and Seattle robbery Detective Mike Magan explained: “I’ve always said the person who commits pharmacy robberies for oxycontin is the most dangerous person you’ll come up against…”. To combat oxycontin robberies, the Seattle police department provided a tracking device to a pharmacy to put in with the oxycontin  should a robbery occur.   (See story.)  The man they caught was suspected of committing 16 pharmacy robberies.

In response to such robberies, the elected prosecutor from King County, Dan Satterberg, is pushing the state legislature to increase the penalties for these oxycontin robberies.   The Washington Retailers Association is also supporting this.  I won’t argue against such ideas, but I would encourage our legislatures to remember how we got into this mess in the first place.

How about the pharmaceutical company Purdue-Pharma that invented and mass-marketed oxycontin?  The company agreed that it committed a felony when it marketed oxycontin and hid how unsafe it was.  The company faced 600 million in fines after it plead guilty, but how come the executives never went to jail?  (See news reports).  According to a story in the New York Times, “…Purdue Pharma contended that OxyContin, because of its time-release formulation, posed a lower threat of abuse and addiction to patients than do traditional, shorter-acting painkillers like Percocet or Vicodin.”   Lower threat then Vicodin?  This false claim by Purdue Pharma was the center of their aggressive marketing campaign.  Just a few years after the drug’s introduction in 1996, annual sales reached $1 billion.  According to the above mentioned article, “Purdue Pharma heavily promoted OxyContin to doctors like general practitioners, who had often had little training in the treatment of serious pain or in recognizing signs of drug abuse in patients.”  The story continues: “…both experienced drug abusers and novices, including teenagers, soon discovered that chewing an OxyContin tablet or crushing one and then snorting the powder or injecting it with a needle produced a high as powerful as heroin. By 2000, parts of the United States, particularly rural areas, began to see skyrocketing rates of addiction and crime related to use of the drug.”  Although drug companies often can’t predict the consequences of their products, Purdue Pharma had to admit that they deliberately concealed the harmful effects of its drug.

Although the company had to pay $600 million in fines, the profits from the sale of oxycontin were about four times that much.   Purdue Pharma had a lot of money to hire lawyers, and when they were being investigated they hired Rudy Guilliani to try to use his influence to get the DEA to back off.  Guilliani accepted several million dollars for this service.  See story.  Guilliani went to see the local Virginia prosecutor that was going after Purdue Pharma, and the local prosecutor ultimately agreed that the three executives would not have to do jail time.  See story.  So while I am not really happy that drug addled nitwits are robbing our state’s pharmacies, I am troubled by the unfairness of a system that allowed the executives who created this mess to get off without any jail time.  The judge who handled the sentencing of the executives felt the same way.  He explained that the the lack of jail time for the executives was the “most difficult” part of accepting the plea deal.  Protesters outside the court house were angry that the executives were getting off so lightly.  Many protesters had lost loved ones to accidental overdoses of the drug.

This poster was held by a woman protesting the light sentences for the executives. Her 17-year-old daughter died of an overdose of just one pill of this supposedly "safer" pill.

You can see why the family members of people hurt by oxycontin would be upset by the court system.

What responsibility does Purdue Pharma have as to all the oxycontin pharmacy robberies in this State?  Not much apparently.  According to the Spokesman-Review last week, the company that has made 2.8 billion on this drug was offering just a measly $1,000 reward for the latest robbery.

You really have to wonder about the way drug companies market these prescriptions.   The latest problem is the practice of drug companies writing articles about how great their latest drugs are and then finding a doctor to submit the article to a publication.  The article then makes no mention of the fact that the article was not really written by the particular physician.  With oxycontin, Purdue Pharma would market oxycontin by getting in good with doctors with free trips.  Purdue Pharma would pay for the transportation and hotel costs for hundreds of doctors to attend weekend seminars in spots like Florida to discuss pain management.  Doctors were then recruited and paid to speak to other doctors at some of the 7,000 ”pain management” seminars that Purdue sponsored around the country.  The seminars  taught the importance of aggressively treating pain with the powerful drugs made by Purdue Pharma.

I find it highly annoying that all the discussion of these oxycontin robberies ignores how we got into this oxycontin disaster to begin with.  As seen in the wanted poster above, going after a drug addict in a hat and hooded sweatshirt is pretty easy.  They look guilty, and you can score political points by being “tough on crime”.    All of the police detectives, prosecutors, politicians, defense lawyers, legislators, probation officers and judges of Washington State coping with this problem are really just janitors cleaning up a mess left by powerful forces of money and power and influence back East.

A cougar visited Discovery Park in Seattle and made world news last weekend.  See BBC article.   The cougar was spotted by an employee in the 534-acre park.  (A square mile is 640 acres, in case you didn’t know that already.)  The animal was trapped and relocated to a more remote location.  Game agents placed a radio-tracking collar on the cat.

I found this news story funny, because the Fish and Wildlife Department has frequently taken the position that problematic cougar encounters were the result of human habitat encroachment.  In other words, Washington’s population boom led too many people to relocate to rural areas.   In the late-90’s when I worked as the prosecutor for Ferry County, I worked with the county commissioners to try to force the State to better assist rural residents in management of these cats.  When hound hunting was banned in the late 1996 (by voter initiative) it was widely predicted that there would be a large increase in cougar population in Washington.   In 1996, the Seattle-Times ran an editorial urging voters NOT to support a ban on hound hunting, warning that such a ban could lead to 10% yearly increases in cougar population similar to what happened in Oregon.  Now a cat was found just a few miles from the newspaper’s downtown offices.   Symbolism is often an important driver of political change.

The sighting of a cougar in Seattle got far more media attention then the incident last Wednesday in Stevens County where a cougar attacked a 5-year-old child.  The boy was attacked when he and his family were hiking a trail in on Abercrombie Mountain along Silver Creek in the Colville National Forest.   The boy’s mother was near him when the cougar suddenly attacked from out of a brushy area.  The woman fought off the cat, and the parents took the child about 25 miles to the hospital in Canada.  See article.  In my opinion, the mother likely saved the child’s life by her actions.  Unlike fending off bear attack, most cougar attacks are stopped by fighting back aggressively.

As to the Seattle cougar, Department of Fish and Wildlife Capt. Bill Hebner commented: “We had over 450 confirmed dog attacks on an annual basis in King County and no cougar attacks; so that should help put it into perspective.”

Am I the only one who thinks that comment sounds glib?  After all, they did close the park down for 5 days until the cougar was caught.  You can see online the great expense and effort that Fish and Wildlife put into removing this Seattle cougar.  Does the department respond with the same vigor for problem cats in inhabited areas of Eastern Washington?

In the Seattle-PI article, Capt. Hebner admitted that Department of Fish and Wildlife officials initially thought the sightings of a cougar in Seattle could be bogus.   Hebner explained that he did not believe it until he talked to a woman that had seen one.    He quizzed her on the cat’s coloration.  He said the woman’s description of the tail length was “spot-on.”    “She even described how it ran, and her description of it loping and running is exactly how a cougar would move,” Hebner said.   You really have to wonder about some of these top-level F&W guys.  What in the world else would this woman be describing if not a cougar? Could the caller really have confused that with another animal?  At 140 pounds it is 10 times the size of a house cat.  In the past, many Eastern Washington residents have complained that F&W officials in Western Washington are often dismissive of cougar fears, or stories of attacks.

Congratulations to Dick Graham, editor of the Republic News Miner, for celebrating his 100th birthday!   Dick Graham of the Republic News Miner is not really that old, but I am not 50 years old either, as many concluded after reading his newspaper last week.  The Republic News Miner ran a large birthday announcement, and did not differentiate Steve Graham (me) from his son Steve Graham who does not live anywhere near Ferry County.  Needless to say, I got a lot of birthday wishes.

I haven’t really noticed other Graham family member birthday announcements in the Republic News Miner over the years, but do remember ten years ago a similar birthday announcement when his son turned 40.  I asked Dick Graham about it ten years ago, and his response was that his son was here first.   True.   I look  forward to meeting the other Steve Graham some day.  Who would dream that I would move to a town of about 1000 people and face another Steve Graham?

Not much has changed in ten years.  Except one thing:  there is a thing called “new media.”  I wonder what birthday announcements will look like in the next ten years.

For the record, I am 39 years old.   If you see Dick Graham of the Republic News Miner wish him a happy 100th birthday.  He is a great guy – I consider him a friend – and he has a great sense of humor.

I noticed in my years working as a prosecuting attorney that police officers often had a rather black-and-white view of the world.  It was good versus evil, with not a lot of in between.  They did not seem to wonder too often if a person charged was truly guilty – it was usually assumed.   I don’t think I ever heard it questioned whether a defendant was receiving a fair trial, or if the media was giving the accused a fair shake.  Then, on June 22nd, 2009, it was announced that Office Karl F. Thompson was being charged in federal court with two felonies related to the death of Otto Zehm, the mentally disabled janitor the police beat and tased at Zip-Trip while he bought a soda on March 20th, 2009.   As that indictment was handed down, I kind of wondered what response the police community would have to Karl Thompson’s indictment.  Would they explain his actions away as those of one bad apple, or would they rally in his defense?

Well, I received my answer this week when I noticed online that Karl Thompson’s supporters had created a Face Book “fan page” for him.   The page promotes the sale of bracelets for $10 each.  The page blames the media for making Karl Thompson a “media scapegoat,” but then writes: “Thanks to the story in the Spokesman-Review, demand for the wristbands has increased.”  As of today, the page had almost 230 fans.

See news story about indictment:

I will continue to follow the case of U.S. v. Karl Thompson, as well as the civil suit the family of Otto Zehm as brought against Karl Thompson and the City of Spokane.   The Center of Justice in Spokane has a website about Otto Zehm. A central issue in both the civil case and the criminal case will be Thompson’s compliance with Spokane County’s use of force policy. The policy authorizes varying level of force depending on the threat that the police encounter.

When interviewed by police officials, Karl Thompson admitted that Otto Zehm did not try to strike him, but explained that Zehm refused to drop the plastic bottle of soda he was carrying. Thompson stated that he feared the two-liter bottle could be used as a weapon.  When interviewed, Thompson explained that the learning-disabled Zehm responded “why?” when Thompson told him to drop his soda.  Thompson explained that he struck Zehm first in the leg with the police baton trying to knock him to the ground. The store video in Zip Trip is partially obscured by the store shelves but it shows the officer standing over Zehm from behind.

I had high hopes for Greg Ridgley, the 18-year-old Spokane city council candidate.   He was young, nervy, and full of new ideas for the Lilac City.  And lets face it, he would have provided lots of things to blog about.   I wrote about him last month here.  At 11:05 a.m. an individual named “bonzai” posted a comment on that article predicting: “Today is judgment day for young Mr. Ridgley. I bet he gets only 3 or 4% of the vote in today’s primary.”

Well, right you were, the results were released at 8:00 p.m. by the Secretary of State, and Mr. Ridgley only received 3.34% of the vote.  Mr. bonzai made a good prediction.  The results of the election are here.

The 3.34% that Ridgley received was way lower than lawyer Steven Eugster received at 16%, and he ran for election after having been suspended from the state bar.   Eugster was known for suing the city of Spokane.    Ridgley, did however, soundly beat (by a 3-2) margin David Elton, a candidate for city council who recently was arrested for threatening to kill the council president, according to news stories.  Maybe that was the problem – the protest vote was split this year.  If you are really fed up with city government, do you vote for:  1) an attorney that sues the city,  2) a man who allegedly threatens to kill city officials, or 3) do you vote for an 18-year-old out of protest?

Maybe the protest chic of voting in an 18-year-old has worn off.  18-year-olds can and do win election races, according to news stories.   But I started to worry about Greg Ridgley’s chances when he never really developed a strong internet campaign.  It seems if you are young, you at least have to use the medium that favors your demographic.  Also, when I would travel to Spokane for court, I really didn’t see his campaign signs up.  He made a lot of campaign appearances, and I am sure he really got a lot of public speaking experience.  He seems to be taking the election loss in stride.  His latest posting on Facebook is “Greg went all in and lost in Texas Hold ‘Em Poker.”

Indeed you did Mr. Ridgley.  We hope to see you again.

Kino Michael Gomez is accused of first degree murder for shooting Tom Pfaeffle at a motel in Twisp, Washington on July 17th, 2009.   Judging by news reports the prosecutor and the defense lawyer agree on the following facts:   Gomez checked into room 7 of the motel.  Pfaeffle checked into room 8.  The two men did not know each other.   Later in the evening at 10 p.m., Pfaeffle mistakenly tried to entered room 7.  In response, Gomez shot Pfaeffle who died shortly thereafter.  The major disputed fact is how far did Pfaeffle go in trying to enter Gomez’s motel room.  Was the door open or shut?

According to the July 22nd, 2009 Omak-Chronicle, the  Prosecutor stated “the evidence shows the door was not open.”  The Seattle Times in a July 21st story quoted police as stating that Pfaeffle was shot “when he apparently put his room key into the wrong door Friday night. He was hit in the chest by a bullet fired through the closed door.”  In another story Twisp Police Chief Rick Balam was quoted as saying “There’s absolutely no question the door was closed when the shots were fired.”

Most people I talked to seemed to form a strong opinion as to the guilt of Kino Michael Gomez based on reading these law enforcement statements in the media.  Most people asked: “What kind of maniac would shoot through a closed door, just because someone unsuccessfully jiggled the door handle?”   The people posting comments on the internet also formed an opinion as to Gomez’s guilt based on the comments of the police that the suspect shot through a closed door.

“Assuming the man that fired the shots had a ‘legal’ right to own a gun, he has no excuse to fire random shots through a hotel door… at ANYONE.”  See Link.

“Why did he fire THRU the door-after he barred the door. It isnt like someone broke in- Who the fck fires thru a door because they think they are being robbed?”  See Link.

“A man paranoid enough to shoot through a closed door of a motel was probably up to no good to begin with.”
“I realize people make mistakes, but this is inexcuseable. YOU DON’T FIRE A GUN THROUGH A CLOSED DOOR.”

So does the evidence really show that Kino Michael Gomez shot through a closed door?   The Methow Valley News sent a reporter to the scene to to take photographs of the door which are posted online here and here.

Hmmmmmm.  It is not exactly as Twisp Police Chief Rick Balam described it.  He after all stated “There’s absolutely no question the door was closed when the shots were fired.”   Based on my experience prosecuting and defending homicide cases, the photographic evidence is more consistent with Kino Michael Gomez’s statement to the police.   Kino Michael Gomez was interviewed by Officer Ty Sheehan of the Twisp Police Department, and Gomez stated that “he had been concerned about the lack of a deadbolt on the door and had wedged a chair against the doorknob.”   Gomez told the police ” he awoke to the sound of someone trying to get into the room and had seen the door open and ‘a full silhouette’ of someone in his room.”  See story in Methow Valley News.   Gomez stated that he responded “like it was automatic,” shooting toward the door.

After I looked at the photographs, it appeared that the bullet hit the door frame, and based on the angle of the bullet, the door must have been half way open.

The good reporting of the Methow Valley News has raised a lot of questions in this case.  Good for them for doing their own reporting rather than simply repeating what the police said. The defense attorney Michael Haas is doing a thorough job of raising the right questions too, and has apparently sent his own investigators out to the scene of the shooting.  They had to act quickly because the motel was attempting to repair everything a.s.a.p.

Under Washington law, a person can use deadly force in self-defense if they believe they were in reasonable fear.   If a person claims that they used force against a perceived intruder, it would certainly be relevant how far the perceived intrusion went.  Dave Workman, author of Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities wrote an opinion piece on this case just after the incident.  See Link.  Like most of us at first, he understood the incident to involve shooting through a door that was closed.  I wonder if he has further insights based on Mr. Gomez’s version of events and the photographs and other recent developments.

It will be interesting to see how this case unfolds in the weeks to come.  I don’t envy the defense lawyer or the prosecutor in this case.  I have never met the defense lawyer on this case, but I know the prosecutor a little.   The best prosecutors on cases like this are tough, but also keep an open mind as to new developing facts that could change their mind.   I believes that describes this prosecutor.

What does every one else think about this case?  Can Kino Michael Gomez get a fair trial in Okanogan County?  Has anyone else noticed the racial overtones about some of the internet news comments out there?   I discussed in a blog post last month about friends and family of Amanda Knox who posted a internet site to support the defense of Amanda.  Should Kino Michael Gomez’s family also consider a similar campaign?   I also wrote in a blog post last month about the bearing of arms in public places.  What are the societal costs of an armed populace?