WA: "sometimes 130 to 240 cases in a 2 hour period"

From KIMA:

Public Defenders Office Deals With Backlog

Dan Fessler runs the Yakima County Department of Assigned Counsel. They're better known as the Public Defenders. Attorneys there handle all defendants who can't afford a lawyer; both adults and juveniles. That's a huge load.

Fessler says it reminds him of an old TV show. "I like to think of it as the old "I Love Lucy" skit where they're working in a bakery and at first she's going along doing fine," Fessler chuckles, "Then the cakes start coming out faster and pretty soon she's dropping cakes..."

There's news video too.

WA: amateur photography

From the Yakima Herald-Republic:

Alleged tagger framed by his own camera

An 18-year-old man from Union Gap suspected of tagging nearly a dozen buildings in Yakima, Union Gap and Wapato was booked on felony and misdemeanor charges Monday after sheriff's deputies nabbed him - with his own camera.

...(A)fter turning it on and looking at the photos, it became clear the camera was evidence of a different sort. All the images showed the suspect spray-painting graffiti on an assortment of buildings...

The suspect apparently took great pride in his work... (D)eputies raided the suspect's residence in Union Gap and seized a large amount of graffiti paraphernalia as well as a camcorder depicting the suspect spray-painting his tag on a building...

WA: this week's news from Yakima

From the Yakima Herald - Republic:

Rape conviction overturned

In a first for the state of Washington, DNA testing not available 10 years ago convinced a Yakima County judge Wednesday to overturn a 1996 rape conviction... The ruling by Superior Court Judge Robert Hackett drew loud gasps from supporters of Ted Bradford, 33, who served nine years in prison...

Bradford's conviction was the first in Washington that was overturned solely on the basis of new DNA evidence, according to one of his lawyers, University of Washington law professor Jackie McMurtrie, who leads the Innocence Northwest Project in Seattle.

"Thank goodness for advances in science," she said. A few feet away, Bradford huddled with friends and family...

Convicted killer will be re-charged

The man convicted of killing Yakima community activist Toni Gardner 10 years ago is back in court. A decade ago, Robert Eugene Langford pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the stabbing death of Gardner...

Langford's case, however, is the latest and probably the last of 15 Yakima County murder cases invalidated as a result of a controversial 2002 state Supreme Court ruling... Prosecutors have until Sept. 29 to arraign Langford on a new charge. The paperwork was already filled out by day's end: first-degree murder.

That's the same charge Langford originally faced for Gardner's death. Instead, he pleaded guilty to a variation of second-degree murder known as felony murder. It was that very variation... that the Supreme Court tossed out in 2002. (In) Andress v. State of Washington, the court reasoned that assault without proof of intent to kill was too similar to manslaughter and could not serve as the basis for a felony murder conviction...

Known simply as Andress, the dual rulings jeopardized roughly 300 felony murder convictions statewide...

WA: hung jury for Cowboy Mike

From the Yakima Herald-Republic,

Deadlocked jury forces 'Cowboy Mike' mistrial

In what may have been his greatest escape to date, "Cowboy Mike" (Braae) wriggled out of a conviction Tuesday when the Yakima County Superior Court jury, after three grueling days of deliberations, deadlocked 11-1 in favor of a guilty verdict...

Braae's attorney, Rick Smith, said he thinks it would be wise to send Braae to Olympia, where Thurston County prosecutors have been building a murder case there for several years...

Update 05/11/06: thus has it come to pass -

Michael “Cowboy Mike” Braae pleaded not guilty this afternoon in Thurston County Superior Court to charges of first-degree murder and rape.

FDEWI P.D. - RSVP

Central Washington's Sparky says that the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho office is hiring for a position in sunny Yakima.

(I can share this with you now, you see; the psychic scars from my tragicomic job interview with them are all faded!)

ID & WA: Cowboy Mike on trial

Notorious inmate's attempted murder trial begins

The long-anticipated attempted murder trial of "Cowboy Mike," one of the most notorious inmates in the history of Yakima County, finally got under way today.

Michael John Braae, 46, a drifter and aspiring country-and-western singer known as Cowboy Mike, is accused of shooting girlfriend Marchelle Morgan in the head and leaving her for dead on Parker Bridge Road in 2001...

He is serving more than nine years in prison for trying to evade a manhunt in connection with Morgan's shooting, firing at Idaho police during a wild chase and leaping 40 feet off an interstate bridge into the Snake River.

In addition to the Yakima case, he faces a murder charge in Thurston County in connection with the death of a Lacey woman.

Yakima County, Thurston County, Idaho...shudder to imagine crossing paths with this guy.

Bonus link goes to the retirement party this month for the Malinois K-9 cop who caught Cowboy Mike:

WA: Yakima County's annus horriblis

Poor Yakima County. These things seem to come in waves, and this one is partially meth-fuelled:

2005 was a 'horrible year' for crime -

Drug users and gang members drove a double-digit percentage increase in Yakima County's crime rate during 2005, law enforcement officials said this week after annual statewide statistics were released.

"It was just a horrible year," Sheriff Ken Irwin said...

Police in Seattle reported 25 homicides in 2005, just one less than the total reported across Yakima County last year. The local annual average over the past decade has been closer to half that...

The place has been reeling lately. I hope this doesn't take the locals back to the days when CBS News could set up a camera on top of Chinook Tower and film daylight drug transactions on the street corners in Southeast Yakima below.

WA: more hq moves for p.d.'s

From the Herald-Republic:

Public defenders' office moving to bigger space

The Yakima County department that provides attorneys for poor defendants plans to move to the former Halverson & Applegate law office space at North Fourth Street and Lincoln Avenue. Dan Fessler, who heads the office of Assigned Counsel, said he hopes to complete the move of his 19-member staff by July 1...

"We have a few people double-bunked in here," he said. "We are out of space with no room for expansion..."

For years they had been crammed in a narrow little shoebox across from the library, and across the parking lot from my former employer. If the new building is the one I'm thinking of, it will be a few steps farther to the courthouse, but a big step up for morale. It's nice to see p.d.'s getting private law firm - grade accomodations now and then.

WA: hiring hall

The Yakima County Office of Assigned Counsel is hiring one Senior Attorney and two Attorneys. Initial assignment and duties for two of the positions will be in the Superior Court working adult felony cases... Initial assignment and duties for one position will be in the Juvenile Court. The final filing date for this position is Friday, March 17, 2006. Apply to Yakima County Human Resources, 128 N. 2nd Street, Room B27, Courthouse, Yakima, WA 98901, (509) 574-2220. For more information, go to www.co.yakima.wa.us.

I lived in Yakima for three years and have a soft spot for the place still: orchards all around, four distinct seasons, and the best produce stands and Mexican food in the Northwest.

WA: from p.d. frying pan to pro se fire

From Yakima, a reminder: the judge and jury always see and always pick up on the behavior displayed at counsel table:

Defendant — and attorney

A Yakima County jury began hearing testimony in the murder trial of a man accused of the ultimate act of domestic violence — beating and stomping to death his girlfriend in a drunken rage. Kenith Wayne Sherrill, 59, is representing himself on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Teressa Lynn Hilton, 39...

Although the facts of the case are not particularly unusual, it is unusual for a defendant to represent himself on a murder charge... Self-representation in a murder case is rare and was allowed only after pre-trial hearings during which Sherrill repeatedly accused court-appointed attorney Tim Cotterell of "prosecuting" him.

I've seen this sort of expression before on other defendants in court, but I can't quite interpret it. Controlling and confident? Or contemptuous and clueless? He puts me in mind of the proverbial frog in a pot over a slow flame, who doesn't notice as the water comes up to a boil.

WA: pd funding's bad, it's statewide

News from Yakima:

Justice cause — County pleads with state for more money

Yakima County to plea for more money from governor

Saying they are one death penalty case away from bankruptcy, Yakima County commissioners are going with hat in hand to Gov. Christine Gregoire.

It's a stark statement about the impacts a costly death penalty case could have on county finances, but not an understatement, commissioners argue...

Yakima isn't the only county to face the problem of rising court costs in recent years. Depending on the complexity, trying a death penalty case can cost up to $1 million. It's a problem recognized by state and local officials alike.

In his state of the judiciary address before the Legislature on Wednesday, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander noted that Washington ranks 50th of the 50 states in terms of the percentage of state support for its trial courts, including the cost of criminal prosecution and public defense...