Thomas Clouse

Friends have identified the homicide victim discovered Sunday in North Spokane as 34-year-old Kim Schmidt.

The same judge who approved the ballot language for the recall that unseated Spokane Mayor Jim West has been appointed to hear a similar effort to remove Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker. Superior Court Judge Craig Matheson, of the Tri-Cities, has been appointed to preside over a Jan. 6 hearing to determine whether several allegations levied against Tucker by Spokane activist Shannon Sullivan are factually and legally sufficient to proceed to a recall vote.

Spokane city officials Friday announced that the vacant Ridpath Hotel is “substandard” and ordered that it cannot be occupied due to lack of compliance with fire suppression requirements. The city’s building official has been working with a group of owners since February trying to resolve issues and made the announcement after a Dec. 15 deadline went unheeded to fix the building’s fire suppression system and provide enough security to prevent access to the building, city spokeswoman Marlene Feist said in a news release.

Defense attorneys for convicted Spokane police Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. filed a motion Friday claiming everything from judicial error to juror misconduct in their attempt to persuade a federal judge to grant a new trial for charges stemming from the fatal 2006 confrontation with Otto Zehm. The first allegation is one that has been presented twice – and twice rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle – that the government did not present sufficient evidence to show Thompson acted willfully, or with a bad or evil purpose, to deprive Zehm of his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable force.

Defense attorneys for convicted Spokane Police Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. filed a motion today claiming everything from judicial error to juror misconduct in their attempt to convince a federal judge to grant a new trial stemming from the fatal confrontation with Otto Zehm.

A couple charged with killing a Spokane man over a thrown cellphone appeared in court Thursday, where a judge sent them a lifeline in reducing their bonds but kept the amounts high enough that will likely keep them incarcerated. David C. McLaughlin, 21, and Melinda R. Barrera, 31, both pleaded not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder before Superior Court Judge Michael Price. Neither suspect has a prior felony conviction and McLaughlin’s appointed defense attorney, Tom Krzyminski, asked Price to consider that past in his request for McLaughlin’s release.

Sue Kellogg got an uneasy chuckle when she learned that domestic terrorist Kevin W. Harpham claimed in court Tuesday that he wasn’t intending to hurt anyone with his homemade bomb, but rather just sound a loud protest by aiming it at the glass walls of the Eye Care Team building on Main Avenue. “We had staff and customers in the (lobby of the) building that morning,” said Kellogg, who owns the building with her husband. “Sending a lot of exploding glass into the building would not have been less lethal … than setting if off in the parade.”

Leaving a bomb laced with rat poison along the planned route of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Unity March was merely a “creative idea” to protest multiculturalism, domestic terrorist Kevin W. Harpham told a Spokane judge Tuesday. The explanation was part of an eleventh-hour bid by Harpham, an admitted white supremacist, to withdraw his guilty plea and face trial.

A federal judge ruled again Monday that government prosecutors provided enough evidence to allow a jury to convict former Spokane police Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. of using excessive force resulting in the death of Otto Zehm. As he did during a four-week trial in Yakima, U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle denied a request by defense attorneys who argued that federal prosecutors failed to provide evidence showing that Thompson acted willfully or with a bad purpose when he beat Zehm with a baton and shocked him with a Taser.

A jury on Monday found a man guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the 2007 slaying of a man in Hillyard. As a result, Michael D. Coombes, 31, faces about seven more years in prison than he would have under an earlier plea agreement, which he was allowed to withdraw because of a technical error. Coombes, who tattooed an image of the gun that he used to kill 53-year-old William “Red” Nichols on his leg, hung his head after Superior Court Judge Annette Plese read the jury’s decision.

A jury today found a man guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the 2007 slaying of a man in Hillyard. As a result, Michael D. Coombes faces about seven more years in prison than he would have under an earlier plea agreement, which he was allowed to withdraw because of a technical error.

A federal judge today again ruled that government prosecutors provided enough evidence to allow a jury to convict former Spokane Police Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. of using excessive force on Otto Zehm.

After the first jury decided 9-3 to acquit him, a second jury handed down a unanimous second-degree manslaughter conviction against the man who built a homemade bomb that killed a Spokane man at a belated Halloween party in 2010. Christapher A. Harris, who turns 21 on Sunday, faces about three years in prison at his sentencing, scheduled for Jan. 6. Harris was convicted of killing 28-year-old Cody R. Hathaway on Nov. 6, 2010, north of Chattaroy.

The trial began Tuesday of a Spokane man who pleaded guilty to a Hillyard slaying in 2007 but was allowed to withdraw the plea after a mistake was made on his sentencing paperwork. Michael D. Coombes, 31, faces a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the Aug. 31, 2007, slaying of 53-year-old William “Red” Nichols, whose body was found near Beacon Hill.

A federal judge today delayed the sentencing of Kevin W. Harpham, who admitted leaving the bomb discovered on the planned route of the Martin Luther King Jr. Unity March in downtown Spokane.

Spokane firefighters this morning battled a fire in Spokane's West Central neighborhood that displaced eight people from a two-story home that had been converted into apartments.

Two men have pleaded guilty to felony possession of marijuana following raids in April of several marijuana dispensaries in the Spokane area.

The family of Kevin W. Harpham has asked for leniency, describing the admitted bomb maker as a gentle, intelligent, well-liked young man whose actions puzzled them.