Judge: Trooper Can’t Use Memo In Trial Patrol Officer Wrote Note After Incident Involving Couple On Their Way To Have Abortion
A King County judge won’t allow as evidence a memo written by a Washington State Patrol trooper after a couple complained he detained them and tried to talk them out of an abortion after he stopped them for speeding.
The memo from Trooper Lane Jackstadt said he believed they would seek an illegal abortion if he didn’t step in. It was written Sept. 1, 1994, the day he learned a complaint had been filed over the traffic stop.
King County Superior Court Judge Norma Huggins ruled the memo could not be admitted. State law says such personal notes can’t be used at trial if they are written after an individual has motive to fabricate an explanation to clear himself.
The internal memo was released Monday during pre-trial motions in the criminal case against Jackstadt, who is accused of unlawful imprisonment and official misconduct in the matter. He is scheduled to stand trial beginning May 1.
Jackstadt said he did not force the couple to follow him to a Christian church to hear an anti-abortion message, as they have contended, and that in fact they “thanked me for going out of my way” and leading them there.
Jackstadt, 34, was fired as a trooper in December for allegedly cheating on a promotional exam.
Prosecutors contend Jackstadt illegally detained Justin Cooper and Deanne Thomas of Seattle last July 27 by forcing them to accompany him to Overlake Christian Church’s Delivery Service.
Jackstadt’s attorney, Thomas Olmstead, says his client did nothing wrong when he tried to educate the couple about options to abortion.
As for the memo, Olmstead said Jackstadt could still testify about his view of the incident.
In the four-page memo, Jackstadt said he stopped the couple for speeding on Interstate 90 near Bellevue. He thought they were having a domestic dispute because Cooper was upset and Thomas appeared to have been crying, he wrote.
He said he told Cooper a speeding ticket wasn’t “the end of the world,” but Cooper didn’t settle down.
“He went on to say that she was in her last trimester and this is the last day that she could get a legal abortion,” Jackstadt wrote.
Thomas actually was in her 10th week of pregnancy. Abortions are legal until the last trimester, which begins after the 26th week.
Jackstadt said he asked the couple whether they were married, how old they were, whether they had spoken to their parents or pastor, and whether they had sought professional help.
Cooper said something like “we’ll just have to find someone who will do an illegal abortion,” Jackstadt wrote. “I remember this quite well because I wondered what he meant by an ‘illegal’ abortion.”
He said he reduced the fine on the speeding ticket and told the couple they could go free, but offered to put them in touch with some “professionals in these types of situations.”