WA: it's pay to play in B'ham court

The Tri-Cities' prosecutorial-leniency-for-donations-to-charity story has other Washington papers looking into their local prosecutors' practices. In Whatcom County, the payoffs aren't to charity; they're going to the county drug enforcement fund. From the Bellingham Herald:

Is justice for sale in Whatcom County?

Neither Joshua S___ nor Joseph H___ had any criminal history when they bought $15,000 worth of marijuana... But then their cases diverged dramatically... Sutton, who put up most or all of the money for the drug buy, paid $9,040 to a fund administered by the Whatcom County prosecutor. He was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge... H____, a construction worker, pleaded guilty as charged and was sentenced to 45 days on a work crew. The felony on his record means he loses the right to vote, and it could affect his ability to land a job for the rest of his life.

Their cases illustrate the inequality of an unusual system in which defendants with quick access to $2,000 or more can often "buy down'' the charges against them... The money, which must be paid up front, is directed to the county's drug enforcement fund. It's disbursed by Prosecutor Dave McEachran with court approval...

But several lawyers, law professors and other prosecutors drew a distinction. This isn't restitution, they said, and it's not a penalty prescribed by law: It's a payment to avoid punishment.

"Plea bargaining isn't always pretty, but this just seems to make a mockery of it,'' said Helen Anderson, who teaches criminal law at the University of Washington law school.

"Yikes, it sounds like the sale of indulgences in the old Catholic church,'' said Janet Ainsworth, a criminal law professor at Seattle University. "If you were to have a continuum between paying a fine and bribery, this is somewhere in between.''

John Strait, a legal ethics expert at Seattle University Law, said... (t)here's also a potential conflict of interest... because McEachran's office is making charging decisions based in part on the money it can obtain for a fund he administers. "We should be punishing people for what they've done, rather than by who's going to give us money..''

In another place and time with a similar set-up, I was torn between my ethical obligation to get my client the best possible outcome, and my moral sense that the whole racket stank. I used to explain the deal to a client by saying, "it's sort of paying a legal bribe. " Yikes, indeedy!

WA: changing of the guard

The latest public defender want ads posted by the Washington Defender Association show job openings for the chief position at both the Pierce County Department ofAssigned Counsel and the Whatcom County Public Defender.

Both Jon Ostlund of Bellingham and Jack Hill of Tacoma will be honored at this weekend's WDA 2006 Defender Conference in Ocean Shores.

A blurb for each:

Mr. Hill serves as the Director of the Pierce County Department of Assigned Counsel (DAC) located in Tacoma, Washington. He is a graduate of Willamette University School of Law. He has directed DAC since 1982. He has received Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association's Liberty Bell Award for protecting the best interests of our children, and the Local Hero Award by the Washington State Bar Association in 2001.

Mr. Ostlund is a 1974 graduate of the Gonzaga University School of Law, and has practiced in Bellingham since then. For the last 19 years, he has been the Whatcom County public defender. In addition to the WSBA board, Mr. Ostlund is a board member for the Washington Defenders Association and the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He served two terms on the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission and has been actively involved in legislative matters on behalf of criminal defense lawyers.

When I was looking for p.d. work on the west side of the Cascades, Jack Hill gave me an hour of his hard-pressed time when there wasn't even an opening in Tacoma, along with some very helpful advice and contacts. Never turn down an informational interview; it can lead somewhere, even years later.

WA: a moving story

PD Stuff scoops me again, and in my own state even! This reminds me of the time my current office became nomadic:

From the Bellingham Herald -

Courthouse squeezes workers - Public defenders moving; others jockey for space

For workers, the Whatcom County Public Defender's Office is completely out of office space...

I love Bellingham - it's my dad's home town - and I was really impressed with Jon Ostlund and the Whatcom County Public Defenders when I interviewed with them years ago. Sadly I wasn't so impressive to them; could've had a tiny bit to do with spending the night before stuck in the snow near Snoqualmie Pass, never the best way to prep for a job interview.

WA: extra-judicial execution

Not asking you to embrace child molesters here. To this extent, this post is about protecting chimos: nobody has the right to kill them.

Two men shot to death at a Bellingham apartment building were Level III sex offenders, police confirmed today. The men were identified by police as Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, both convicted child rapists.

Police are looking for a man who may have posed as an FBI agent to gain access to their apartment. A roommate who found the bodies says the man wore a blue jumpsuit and a cap with the FBI, and said he wanted to talk to the men about their status as sex offenders...

The fake FBI agent told the three roommates that one of them was on a "hit list" on an Internet site, according to the police.

Just how much did mandatory sex offender registration help this murderer commit this crime?

Update: Gideon and TalkLeft are talking about this vigilante violence toward sex offenders.