The Washington State legislature recently has considered certain bills to legalize or decriminalize marijuana.  House Bill 1177, introduced by Mary Lou Dickerson, a Democrat of Seattle, would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana and make it an infraction similar to a speeding ticket.  Similarly, HB 2401 would legalize the drug outright.

But Ric Smith, of the group Sensible Washington, didn’t sound too interested.  He has pushed for a voter initiative that would legalize marijuana.   The voter initiative would attempt to collect enough signatures directly from voters to have the law put on the ballot for a direct vote of the people.  While others at a legislative hearing pushed the legislators to pass the law, Smith told them “We’re going to take it out of your hands, and we’re sorry about that…”  He continued:  “Just wait for our initiative; it’ll take care of everything.”  (See story).   Is he correct?  Will the voter’s pass an initiative that would legalize marijuana?

It may have sounded like Ric Smith was telling the legislature to take a hike, but this was probably not his intent.  After the hearing, I noticed Sensible Washington’s website posted the statement “Sensible Washington certainly appreciates the hard work of legislators who have supported these measures….”

The group Sensible Washington is gathering signatures to put the issue before the voters in the November 2010 general election.  The measure would remove all criminal penalties under Washington law for the adult use of marijuana as well as the possession and cultivation of marijuana.

What do you think?

Former King County Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Schene is pending trial now on one count of Assault Fourth Degree for allegedly assaulting a 15-year-old girl he arrested.  Below is a copy of the jail footage of the incident.

So this was a while ago.  Deputy Paul Schene has since been fired.  The latest is that Paul Schene is now pending trial on one count of Assault Fourth Degree and the trial will resume this Tuesday.  So the system works, I guess.  Schene is facing trial.  I guess what bugs me is that on top of the fact that he roughed up Malika Calhoun, Paul Schene also attempted to charge her with assaulting him.   I had to watch the video a few times before I figured out that Paul Schene justified his take down on Calhoun by the fact that she flicked her shoe at his leg when she took it off.   It is also a little disturbing that the other police officer pretty much just stands there while this is going on.  He doesn’t seem particularly disturbed when he sees what his fellow officer does, although I guess he does seem a little taken aback when the punches start.

Jurors give a lot of deference to police officers, and are slow to disbelieve them when they allege that they have been assaulted.  If it weren’t for the video, Malika Calhoun could be the one on trial for assault, and she would probably be convicted.

See the story in the Seattle-Times.  The police officer Paul Schene is being represented by defense lawyer Peter Offenbecher of Seattle.  The story in the paper explains the defense approach.  It seems like Offenbecher has a pretty big challenge in light of the video tape evidence, but then again everyone thought the LAPD would be convicted of the assault of Rodney King too.

What does everyone else think about this case?  Obviously our system should protect the police as much as we can from assaults, but other than video-taped proof, how can we tell when the police lie or exaggerate?

I read an interesting article this week in the Spokesman-Review about Eagle High School in Boise, where biology teacher Misty Sterk is teaching a semester long class in forensic science.  (See article).  I found this interesting because forensic science can be a little gruesome.   High school students need to be treated with a little more caution then college kids.  I sometime coach mock trial teams in high school, and I try to be careful with kids even on the subject of court cases.

Ketchup from the lunch room?

But in this class apparently, the kids are not particularly squeamish.  One student explained to the reporter: “With a knife wound, for example, a blood spatter indicating a downward trajectory means the attacker was probably right-handed, because with a left-handed person the spatter would be more horizontal.”   The article goes on to explain that the class “is getting students excited about science by processing a crime scene, using maggots to determine time of death, fingerprinting, analyzing blood spatters, and determining race and sex based on skeletal remains, DNA testing and ballistics.”

The article made me wonder how the blood spatter science could be appropriately taught in a high school.   When I took a course at the state police academy near Seattle, blood spatter science was taught in the gymnasium.  First the instructor spread out giant sheets of white paper over the floor.  Next he swung a bat repeatedly into a sponge soaked with pigs blood.  We studied how the blood droplets struck the paper.   I am not sure you can teach the subject with fake blood because any other substance will have a different viscosity and surface tension.   I am sure the teacher, being a pro, has found some way to teach this in a manner appropriate for kids.  In the world of forensics, the science is usually referred to as blood “spatter” rather than blood “splatter” but the two words are really synonyms.

I would bet that the part of the course on identification of human bones would be pretty interesting.  In 1998, I took a class in forensic anthropology at Eastern Washington University taught by Dr. Sarah Keller.   Also in the class was attorney Karl Sloan, who is now the Okanogan County Prosecuting Attorney.   The “final exam” for the class consisted of  being handed a bunch of bones in a shoe box and having to identify them.   Some bones are pretty basic, but the bones in the hands and feet are almost impossible to identify.  The subject of identification of bones  does not come up too often in forensics.  I did see, however, that this was an issue in a recent fire in Curlew, Washington.  In the news story, it was explained that a forensic anthropologist was needed to assist in identifying the bones.   The class I took at EWU didn’t make anyone an expert, but it helped teach the basic science.  Dr. Keller explained that people would be shocked at how many times police detectives would bring in a bone for her to examine that was clearly an animal bone, and that that should have been obvious.  She explained that certain bear bones can often appear to be human bones.

The television show C.S.I. has been on for about ten years.  It has been very popular and has drawn a lot of student interest in the profession.  Even many students at Eagle High School were interested in it.  Both Eastern Washington University and Seattle University have 4-year degrees available in forensics.   But despite the growing interest in the field of forensic scientists, the labs always seem to be short-staffed.  Last week, the Skagit Valley Herald printed an article describing how a shortage of qualified technicians in the state crime lab has created a huge backlog of evidence to be tested, even in serious cases such as shootings.   Washington State is trying to recruit forensic science technicians from as far away as South Africa.  A list of schools teaching forensic science is available here.  I looked at Gonzaga’s website and it does not appear that they have a degree program in forensic science at this time.

Forensic science plays a roll more and more in court cases.  The science changes all the time and criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors keep up through various trainings around the country.   If a defense lawyer does not know the science well, it is difficult to properly defend his or her client.   The use of faulty forensic science is a big cause of wrongful convictions.  About 1/2 of the 232 people that the Innocence Project has helped free were originally convicted at trial by “unvalidated or improper” forensics.    Last February, the National Academy of Science issued a report criticizing the sloppy practices of crime labs, imprecise scientific tests, and the exaggeration in court of the scientific reliability of results.   Many of these tests criticized are similar to scientific results being used (or misused) in the courts of Spokane County, Grant County, Okanogan County and other areas of Eastern Washington.

Idaho has had a new rash of hate crimes in the last year.  Last Friday, Brittany Edelblute’s Subaru was spray painted with swastikas.   In an article in the Spokesman-Review this morning, it was explained that Brittany Edelblute was apparently targeted because she has friends who are African-American that come by her house.  She has had a problem with people shouting racial slurs while they drive by.   A photo of her damaged vehicle is online here.  I blogged about a similar incident last month against Haitham Joudeh here and here.   In the news coverage last month in the Coeur D’Alene Press, the comment section was full of hateful comments.   The whole story was later taken down.  This time, the Coeur D’Alene Press did not post a story online about the crime against Brittany Edelblute.   Last month, a majority of the people making comments online accused Haitham Joudeh of vandalizing his own car just to get sympathy.

Why does this stuff always happen in North Idaho?  I don’t think it is just happenstance. It seems that the people in power over there inadvertently foster such behavior by their own actions.  Look at the shabby way Kootenai County Commissioners Rick Currie, Todd Tondee and Richard Piazza treated Haitham Joudeh.  Haitham Joudeh, an Idaho native of middle-eastern descent, sought a building permit.  The local Planning Department did not object to the project.  In addition, after a lengthy public hearing where all sides were held, the Hearing Examiner Rebecca A. Zanetti recommended that the permit be approved.  But neighbors put together an anti-Joudeh rally against the applicant, and the county commissioners bowed to pressure and rejected the permit.   Haitham Joudeh complained that during the rally and the public hearing, many negative comments were made about his religion and ancestry.   Commissioner Rick Currie is a member of the Mica Grange, the group that allegedly held the anti-Joudeh rally.   Currie boasts of his membership to this group on his re-election website.

I have done a fair amount of land-use law in my practice, and it sure seems strange that the county commissioners would not approve a permit when the experts did not see a problem with it.  And if the commissioners are affiliated with groups opposing the permit, they have a duty to step down and appoint a neutral decision maker.

I hope that journalists start to look at this problem in North Idaho as a whole.  A business owner who faces discrimination in the permitting process is not as quick and easy to write about as spray-painted swastikas, but the story deserves attention.   When county commissioners and civic groups foster an attitude 1) that is suspicious of outsiders, 2) that applies different standards to newcomers, and 3) when they do not sufficiently condemn the bigoted statements of their constituents, they inadvertently create an atmosphere that allows the incidents of street vandalism to flourish.

What do you think?  Why do you think these incidents of vandalism and swastikas have occurred?  Brittany Edelblute expressed frustration that the police officer asked her if she wanted to “press charges” over the incident.  Why do you think the officer asked that?   What are the advantages of remaining silent?  Last month the comments to the articles online often attacked Haitham Joudeh.   Will the newspapers better enforce their guidelines for posting comments?

What do you suppose the Coeur D’Alene Chamber of Commerce thinks of all this?  Does Coeur D’Alene want to be known as a first-class vacation destination or a backwater struggling with frequent hate-crimes.   The article in the Spokesman-Review quotes an official who seemed to think that the solution is in law-enforcement?  Is this correct?   Take a look at an interesting article explaining the position of the NAACP leader V. Anne Smith on the issue of hate crimes in Spokane.  (See article).   How would this advice go over in Coeur D’Alene?

Carolyn Paulsen-Riat of Olympia, Washington is accused of Assault for allegedly re-wiring her husband’s table saw and causing him to receive an electrical shock.  According to an article in The Olympian, after the man was shocked he confronted her and she “told him that she had tampered with his tools by switching the positive and negative leads… to intentionally harm him.” Many people who commented in the online article were upset that the judge decided to release this woman on her own recognizance.  Others in the comment section offered the opinion that if a man had been the defendant, that he would have been held on high bail. Paulsen-Riat has been charged with Assault 3rd Degree and Malicious Mischief for vandalism allegedly done to her husband’s property.   Her husband told police detectives that the table saw carried 220 volts, and the “arc from the plug adapter knocked him into some boxes located along the wall of the work shop….”  According to the article by reporter Jeremy Pawloski, the husband did not need medical attention.

It is interesting that Paulsen-Riat was charged with Assault Third Degree.  Under RCW 9A.36.031 the offense of  “Assault Third Degree” means the defendant is accused of committing the following actions:  “With criminal negligence, causes bodily harm to another person by means of a weapon or other instrument or thing likely to produce bodily harm” or “with criminal negligence, causes bodily harm accompanied by substantial pain that extends for a period sufficient to cause considerable suffering.”

So do the prosecutors really believe that Paulsen-Riat acted with intent to harm her husband?  The crime she is charged with alleges that she negligently harmed her husband.   Under Washington’s sentencing guidelines, Assault Third Degree is classified as a “non-violent” crime, and for a first-time offender the sentencing range is 1-3 months.  To increase the charges to Assault 2nd Degree under RCW 9A.36.021, the prosecutors would have to prove that the re-wired table saw amounted to a “deadly weapon.”  (In pertinent part Assault Second Degree is defined as when a person “intentionally assaults another and thereby recklessly inflicts substantial bodily harm” or “assaults another with a deadly weapon“.)   For Assault Second Degree, the standard range of incarceration is 3-9 months with a potential weapon enhancement of 18 months.

It sounds as if this table saw would need to be analyzed by an expert.  Despite what you see on TV shows such as C.S.I., usually assault crimes are pretty run-of-the-mill and are not committed by particularly imaginative means.  That is not to say that assaults cannot be unusually cruel or brutal, just that they are committed in the conventional way.  And the conventional way is immediate, hands-on force with a knife or other typical weapon.  There were a few interesting comments about the electrical aspect of this posted by readers:

Crossing electrical leads on 220 cannot produce a shock. Shorting directly to ground can produce an arc

and

You would not be [electrocuted] by “switching the positive and negative wires” on a 220 volt appliance. There are not “positive and negative” wires on a 220 appliance — both of the main wires in 220 are hot, so reversing them would do nothing at all, and the appliance would still work as intended. Unless she switched one of the two “hot” wires with the ground wire, in which case it could have shocked him briefly, before the circuit breaker would blow.

These comments presumably were made my people who were not electricians.  It would be interesting to hear what an electrician would say about what it would take to harm or even shock someone through this alleged way.  The police allege that Carolyn Paulsen-Riat did admit to tampering with the wires, but it is unclear what her intent was.  At the time, she is alleged to have vandalized some of her husband’s property.  Is it possible that her intent was simply to damage her husband’s table saw?  The facts of this case are so unusual that it is hard to know what to make of it.

As you can see the judges are restrained by certain sentencing guidelines for Assault Third Degree and Assault Second Degree.  In Washington, the legislature came up with these guideline, and minimum and maximums.  It used to be that the judges had broad discretion to sentence within a broad range of 0-5 years or 0-10 years.  Now it is hard for judges to come up with the sentence that they feel is appropriate.  The purpose of having mandatory sentencing is so similar offenders are treated the same.  But how do you compare the facts of this case to “similar” cases?

Will police officers really agree to wearing video cameras?  I read in the business section of the Spokesman-Review last week that the company Taser International has introduced a new line of cameras for police officers.   Taser International, Inc. is, of course, best known for Taser guns, and has sold millions of such instruments for police officers world wide.  However, my guess is that these new cameras for police officers will be go over like a ton of bricks.  The article in the Spokesman explains:

Eighteen of San Jose’s more than 1,300 sworn officers have been trained to use the AXON head cameras as part of a free trial. Other departments are expected to be added to the program.  In San Jose, officers are required to switch on the cameras for even routine investigations, such as vehicle stops.  …  “People have been using (this technology) against us for years, unfortunately only for the bad stuff,” [Officer] Pender said. “So it’d be nice to show our view and our side of what’s going on.” In San Jose, officers are required to switch on the cameras for even routine investigations, such as vehicle stops. At the end of an officer’s shift, the device is placed in a docking station, where it recharges and its content is downloaded and stored on a secure server off site.

The truth is that these sort of cameras are not very popular with police officers or their departments.  As you can see from the photo above, the camera wraps around the ear and sits over the officer’s shoulder.   So it is like literally having someone looking over your shoulder.  And “that someone” is the top brass, the defense lawyers, the tort lawyers, the ACLU, the media, and the general public once the footage gets on TV.  Video evidence provides powerful graphic images that a jury can later see.  It is one thing for a witness or victim of police abuse to say what occurred, but another thing entirely for disturbing video footage to be presented.   While it is widely assumed that having a camera rolling would mean that the police would be on their best behavior, this is not the case.  Often times the officer subjectively believes he or she is acting appropriately at the time, but the video often show otherwise.  Youtube is full of videos of police officers improperly handling suspects while a dash cam is rolling.

Police officers generally don’t like to be recorded.   In the case of State v. Flora, a police officer went so far as to arrest a man who secretly audio-recorded him speaking.  The Washington State Court of Appeals held that the suspect was entitled to make such a recording due to the public nature of the encounter.  Can people really imagine the police of Spokane County, Grant County, Stevens County etc. wearing these things?

Although the salespeople with Taser Internations are trying to market the recording equipment as popular with police, it is not the police who will like them.  Until now, the greatest proponents of requiring the police to record suspect contacts have been civil libertarians.  See support from National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The Justice Project, and ACLU.  The other proponents of requiring the recordings are defense lawyer bloggers.  See blog posts: Grits for Breakfast, FloridaJustice.com, and Law and More.

The ACLU for years has been critical of the Taser gun (see here).  Does anyone else see the irony of Taser Inc. trying to make a buck off something the ACLU supports?

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just greatly limited the use of the Taser gun last week. (See here).  Since I read about this new line of Taser products in the business section of the newspaper, let me offer this financial advice:  The Taser cam won’t sell.  Now is the time to dump your Taser stock.

Last September I blogged about a mountain lion that made its home in Discovery Park in Seattle.  See post.  Now the talk of Seattle is about a coyote that has taken up residence in the same area.  See article in the Seattle Times.  The coyote lives in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, and the sightings and photographs are being tracked by Loree Schoonover, editor of the Magnolia Voice, a community blog.  Apparently Seattle residents have grown a little blase about the coyote and do not really fear the animal.  Sean Carrell, of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife states that it is rare for coyotes to attack pets or people, but it does happen.  According to the article in the Seattle Times, Sean Carroll stated: “There are so many greenbelts that provide avenues for these animals to travel that it’s not uncommon to see them in a highly urbanized environment….”  Mr. Carroll’s comment is interesting.  A “greenbelt” is a corridor of land through or surrounding a populated area to provide wildlife habitat or hiking opportunities.  In Washington’s Growth Management Act, in RCW 36.70A.110, state law provides: “Each urban growth area shall permit urban densities and shall include greenbelt and open space areas.”   Looking at a map, it is pretty hard to see any greenbelt in the area that would be a natural pathway to Discovery Park.
View Larger Map Discovery Park is at the end of a peninsula and the coyote would have to come up through Seattle’s downtown, or from the North and swim across the ship canal. I don’t really have any counter explanation. Seattle for some reason seems to really attract its fair share of random wildlife, and local residents are often at a loss of how to respond. When I lived in the Leschi neighborhood of Seattle at the far end of Yesler Way, an opossum wandered up from the park, and my neighbor thought it was a rat.

Coyote riding a train in Portland, Oregon.

I guess it would be fine if Seattle coyotes remained in the parks and ate opossums, but the coyotes have been known to do some pretty crazy things.  One time in 1997, a coyote entered the Federal Building in downtown Seattle and rode the elevator.  (See source.)  In Portland, Oregon, a coyote ran into an airport and later left the area by train.  (source).  In rural Eastern Washington, where I live now, such close encounters with wildlife are often attributed to habitat encroachment by humans. You do not hear such arguments from the Fish and Wildlife Dept with respect to the Seattle animal encounters.

Let’s face it, courts are busy places, sometimes chaotic, and usually short-staffed.   Defendants, victims, witnesses, and jurors all wait for their cases to be heard.  And the situation usually isn’t improved when a prosecuting attorney flat out refuses to work with a certain judge.  This was the case with Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Hagarty as announced last week in the Yakima-Herald. Jim Hagarty wrote in a letter that Judge Ralph Thompson’s decisions created a question of whether the state would receive “a fair opportunity when litigating cases in his courtroom.”   Jim Hagarty announced that he was asking to have this judge prohibited from hearing any case in which the prosecutor’s office was a party.  Under court rules, this practice is called an “affidavit of prejudice”, and can only be done to a single judge before he or she has made a decision in the case.  Now the question is raised: Since the voters elected Judge Ralph Thompson to hear cases, is it really proper for the elected prosecutor to reject the will of the voters?  Is it fair for Jim Hagarty have Judge Thompson’s work load shifted over to the other already busy judges?  Seattle University law professor John Strait, an expert in legal ethics, addressed the issue.  He indicated that he thought such actions [such as the step Jim Hagarty took] inappropriately deprives voters of a judge they elected to serve them.   He explained “I think that raises separation of powers issues. I don’t think the prosecution should get to trump the elected judiciary’s function in that manner….”

The article in the Yakima-Herald paraphrases the problem that Jim Hagarty had with Judge Ralph Thompson’s decisions.  I expected that the issues would be some pretty significant disagreements, and instead the disputes seem pretty petty.  The number one reason for Hagarty’s decision was an incident last January where the judge found a driver not to have committed a traffic infraction.  The Trooper complained to the prosecutor that the decision left him “dumbfounded.”   The second reason was that Judge Ralph Thompson would not agree to a request for a continuance of a case.  Prosecuting Attorney Jim Hagarty was just appointed to the position in January.  Maybe when his deputies complained to him, he should have told them to develop a thicker skin about such things.  Additionally, it seems as though the prosecutors should have considered filing an appeal or a writ of review.  Jim Hagarty complains that the judge has a lack of legal knowledge. It does seem that the bulk of the Judge Thompson’s experience is in civil work.  However, if this is the case the proper recourse is for the prosecutors to educate the court on the law through the drafting of legal memoranda and citing to legal precedent.  Too often prosecutors, and defense lawyers for that matter, fall in the rut of relying on canned briefs for routine matters, and are unwilling to hit the law books to research a new issue.

It will be interesting to see how the other judges cope with the increased workload.  I just read in the Yakima-Herald last month that Yakima County had the highest homicide rate in over 20 years.  See article.  It seems like the courts will be pretty busy.   You have to wonder why with his hands full with homicide cases, that Jim Hagarty would get involved in some snit his deputies are having with judges in traffic court.  Jim Hagarty is not the first prosecutor to attempt to prohibit a Judge from hearing criminal cases.  In 1984, Spokane County Prosecutor Donald Brockett grew frustrated with the adverse pre-trial rulings of Judge William Luscher in a murder case.  When Judge Luscher ultimately acquitted the defendant, Don Brockett resorted to the same steps Hagarty did.  Brockett eventually backed down after a newspaper editorial questioned the practice.

King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng never filed such affidavits of prejudice reasoning that it was the will of the voters to put or to keep the judge into office, and it would be wrong to override the will of the electorate.  I understand that the Attorney General’s office has the same view.  Maleng’s successor Dan Satterberg has a different view and has challenged Judges Peter Nault, and Victoria Seitz.  Additionally, the prosecutors for the City of Bellevue similarly challenged Judge Frank LaSalata for ruling against them and not imposing the fees they requested.  For an in depth discussion on this issue in King County, see an article by attorney Kennet Phillipson posted here.  Closer to home, Okanogan Prosecuting Attorney Karl Sloan has raised eyebrows with the frequency with which he has filed affidavits of prejudice against Judge Jack Burchard.  Judge Burchard is the only elected superior court judge in Okanogan County.  I have notice in my practice there that this issue has slowed down the criminal courts somewhat as there is sometimes a delay in waiting for an out-of-town judge to hear cases. It remains to be seen if this practice of Karl Sloan’s is a temporary thing or if it will continue.  If it continues, it will be interesting to see how the voters react to their elected judge being barred from many of the cases in Okanogan County.

I didn’t see it in the Spokesman-Review online, but the West-side online newspapers were lit up today with a controversial elk hunt in Concrete, Washington.  It started at ten this morning when the Skagit Valley Herald posted an article about a group of bow-hunters who killed six elk in a farmer’s field.  You pretty much need to read the article to understand the matter, but basically the farmer let any hunter shoot elk in his pasture.  The elk just ran around from one end of the fenced area to the other while unskilled hunters shot the elk with arrows.  It happened right within a few feet of the state highway 20, and I am sure it attracted a lot of attention.  It is interesting that the Skagit Valley Herald had a reporter on scene but did not post any photographs online.  To truly understand the spectacle from a visual point of view, you need to see this site.  The site is a series of photographs posted on SmugMug.com, a service similar to Flickr.com.  The photographer posts captions explaining what he or she saw.  The photographer mentions that he or she removed certain photographs at the request of people in the pictures.  This is interesting because the photographer had no legal duty to do so.

I don’t know a lot about hunting, but the incident raises a lot of questions.  I guess the background to the story is that the State Fish and Wildlife Department authorized additional hunts in the area because the elk herd was posing a danger to vehicle traffic.  Elk are much like moose in that they are large animals with a high center of gravity that pose a deadly threat to motorists.  The use of private hunters to address a problem through special hunts seems to be the way the State handles such concerns.  I remember that in the city of Republic, in Ferry County, it was suggested that nuisance deer be removed through the same manner.  The city opted instead for the deer to be relocated to the Colville Indian Reservation.  That was probably a wise choice because I am sure the local residents would not appreciate bow hunters’ messy work within city limits.

What do people think of this elk hunt?  The game agent who was quoted indicated that he did not like the activity but that it was legal.  How should the laws be changed?  Is it even possible to craft a law that spells what sort of hunts would be unsporting?

What is the proper punishment for shoplifting?  David Warriner, an unemployed man, stole four cans of sardines, shaving cream and razors from a Rite Aid in downtown Spokane, and he was sentenced to 29 months in prison.   See article.  A day later in the newspaper, I read about Father Tim Jones’ opinion on shoplifting.  See article.  Father Tim Jones created a stir by offering the following advice to the desperately poor:

“My advice as a Christian priest is to shoplift…. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither. …  I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses — knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices….”

What would Father Tim Jones say about a 29 month prison sentence for stealing sardines?  Certainly Rite Aid would qualify as one of the “large national businesses.”   Spokane Deputy Prosecutor David Stevens sought the lengthy sentence on David Warriner because of Warriner’s extensive criminal history.   In fact, Warriner was originally charged with Burglary – not because he broke in to Rite Aid, but because he had been asked not go into Rite Aid again, anywhere in the country.  This arguably would meet the elements of burglary under RCW 9A.52.030 which defines the crime as entering a building unlawfully with the intent of committing a crime therein.  David Warriner entered a plea deal down to felony theft second degree, even though the items he stole were just worth $32.

The ethics of what a suitable punishment is for such a crime create an interesting issue.  However, I will leave that for others to debate.  My question is this: Can we as a society really afford to house a man in prison for 2 1/2 years simply for stealing sardines?  Is it good judgment for a public official to decide to expend the State’s resources to punish David Warriner in this manner?  The legislature has been forced to release violent criminals back onto the streets due to budget restraints.  It used to be that inmates only received 1/6 to 1/3 “good time” off their sentence.  Olympia has now been forced to give most inmates 1/2 time off their sentence for good behavior.  When a prosecutor seeks a certain sentence for a defendant, this does not occur in a vacuum.  Any inmate serving 2 1/2 years for stealing sardines is taking up a prison bed that could be used for a dangerous sex offender.  It may be that prosecutor David Stevens had his reasons in this particular case, but I use this instance to discuss the greater problem that I see, prosecutors often not looking a the bigger picture.   (Last month, I blogged about prison sentences and budget cut backs here).   When I looked up the Washington sentencing guidelines, it appears that David Warriner faced a standard range of 22-29 months.  Judge Maryann Moreno had the discretion to sentence Warriner to only 22 months in prison, but decided on a sentence of 29 months.  The Judge explained to Warriner: “Your past history is the reason why you’re going to prison …. We generally don’t send people to prison for this type of crime unless they come in with a history like yours.”  The article did not mention who Mr. Warriner’s criminal defense lawyer was.

What do you think?  Should Judge Maryann Moreno have considered a lighter sentence?  Shoplifting usually receives a punishment of anywhere from a day or two to maybe thirty days.  What about other minor crimes such as fishing without a license, or possession of drug paraphernalia, or public intoxication?  If a person has a lengthy record, should the prosecutor in Spokane County seek to impose the maximum punishment allowed by law?