Get out of jail in 16 minutes
If you ever get arrested on suspicion of first-degree burglary in Spokane after allegedly breaking into a home and waking the resident up with a beating, there’s apparently a surefire way for you to get out of jail. No need for a cake with a file in it. Just hire local attorney Craig Smith, then have him ask Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly to spring you. Make sure Smith says “pretty please” and you might leave the holding cell in 16 minutes. Oh, and one DUI conviction shouldn’t make it more difficult for you to get out.
That’s how blind justice should work for suspected violent burglars in Spokane, if you believe Smith and Rielly’s recent statements to The Spokesman-Review. As Thomas Clouse reported, 23-year-old John Powers – who just happens to be the son of a former Spokane mayor of the same name – strolled out of jail 16 minutes after he was booked May 13 under the circumstances outlined above.
How? Smith picked up the phone and asked Rielly to release Powers on his own recognizance. “I’d do the same thing for whatever client,” the attorney said. Fair enough. But then Rielly just happened to ask if Powers was related to an acquaintance of his, the ex-mayor. “I did that out of interest,” the judge said. We’re sure that’s true. But then Rielly added, “I don’t care who he is.” Rielly said he simply released the young Powers because judges are required to spring such folks “unless we think they are a flight risk or a risk to the community. I just didn’t think he was.”
That should make us all feel much safer. But it does raise one question. We journalists are cautioned about avoiding even the appearance of impropriety in our dealings. Does that same principle not apply to Spokane judges?
He won’t reprint this item
Last fall, Congressman George Nethercutt took on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for allegedly twisting one of his public statements. The paper quoted the Spokane Republican telling University of Washington students, in an Oct. 13 speech about Iraq, “The story of what we’ve done in the postwar period is remarkable. … It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.”
Nethercutt charged the story “deliberately distorted” his comments and constituted “the equivalent of a negative political commercial about me.” In other words, he was angry to see his words taken out of context.
A few weeks back, I pointed out how Nethercutt caught Sen. Patty Murray flat-footed by running an effective early campaign for the West Side Democrat’s seat. Nethercutt’s communications director, Alex Conant, posted nearly 350 words of the item on the news blog at the Nethercutt for Senate Web site. Normally, bloggers cite only snippets of news reports and then link to the full text. That didn’t happen here, perhaps because Conant was unaware 7’s stories are available online at www.spokane7.com.
More troubling, though, was how the lengthy posting omitted only my final paragraph, which discussed how Nethercutt broke a promise that he’d only serve three terms in the House – after winning his seat on the strength of the term-limits issue.
Knowing how much the Nethercutt campaign hates seeing people’s statements taken out of context for political purposes, I’m sure Conant’s elimination of such a key passage was an innocent mistake that won’t be repeated.
A museum we really knead
Thinking about visiting the new World of Massage Museum opened by the owners of Massage Magazine at 811 E. Sprague? Word to the wise: Don’t wink at the ticket-taker and ask for a tour that includes a “happy ending.” You’ll probably need to head to the North Side for that.