In Doty Case, Sentencing By Judge Wasn’t Half-Baked
Kootenai County Judge Gary Haman earned a helping of Hot Potatoes recently for a boneheaded decision that allowed a rapist to escape. But he partially redeemed himself late last week with a wise sentencing for a “mercy killing.”
Haman sentenced Curt Doty to three years in prison for shooting his comatose brother, Daryl, at Kootenai Medical Center. The judge, however, wisely made Curt Doty eligible for parole in 30 days.
Prison time was needed to discourage other mercy killings. But so was compassion. The Doty family has suffered enough from the incapacitating injury of one son and the lawless action of another, who couldn’t stand to see his older brother vegetate.
I hope Curt Doty gets an early parole date, so he and his family finally can begin healing.
These bucket seats don’t include seat belts
Hmmmm. The bucket seats being promoted by the U.S. Forest Service at Priest Lake aren’t exactly the baby blue ones I had in my ol’ 1967 convertible Camaro. But they probably serve a more useful function. Last weekend, the USFS began handing out 5-gallon buckets to offset the scarcity of outhouses on popular Bartoo and Kalispell islands. Too many vacationers were going No. 2 in the tules. Yech. The crude porta-potties and makeshift USFS modesty screens should restore paradise lost. The experiment certainly adds a new dimension to the forest mantra: “Pack it in, pack it out.”
Bond isn’t giving you all the facts
Coeur d’Alene Press columnist David Bond, in his shameless attempt to save death row inmate Donald Manuel Paradis, selectively regurgitates “new” evidence for gullible readers.
You’ll never see the following mentioned in Bond’s wrongheaded cause celebre.
It’s testimony given by a Kootenai County jailer in a closed Spokane court session during Larry Evans’ murder trial. Evans was found guilty of helping kill Scott Currier; Paradis and Thomas Gibson were convicted of killing Kimberly Palmer.
Here’s what the jailer overheard Evans say in a phone conversation regarding Currier’s murder: “We were taking turns stomping him. … When I went out of the house the guy was still alive. And I swear to God I didn’t know Red (Paradis) was going to kill him.” Then, Evans mentioned how Paradis raped Currier’s half-dead girlfriend in a van en route to Post Falls.
Nice guy.
Will that be lethal injection or firing squad?
, DataTimes MEMO: Hot Potatoes is a feature of the Tuesday and Thursday Opinion pages.