Judge rejects request to release inmates
A judge has denied a motion by the city’s public defender to release two dozen inmates at the Spokane County Jail and Geiger Corrections Center as a result of a high-stakes Nov. 8 appeals court decision that threatens the authority of the city’s municipal courts.
Additional motions affecting more than 100 inmates will be heard in the next two weeks.
On Friday, Spokane County District Court Judge Vance Peterson granted a request by Assistant City Attorney Michelle Szambelan to delay a decision on freeing the inmates until after the Washington Court of Appeals rules on a city request to reconsider a Nov. 8 ruling on municipal courts.
That decision tossed out the DUI convictions of two Spokane men, ruling that the municipal court judge who convicted them lacked authority because she wasn’t elected solely by city voters as the Legislature intended.
City Public Defender Kathy Knox told Peterson the 24 inmates convicted on domestic violence charges are being illegally held and the city has known about the legal problems with the city’s courts for more than two years – long before the appeals court ruling.
Szambelan said the inmates whose cases were under consideration Friday are “only the first wave,” and a decision to release them would cause chaos.
Peterson sided with the city.
“If we don’t have the jurisdiction to put them in jail, how do we have the jurisdiction to take them out?” Peterson asked, saying a decision to release the inmates is premature. The Washington Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether Spokane’s municipal courts are legally constituted, he added.
City Attorney Jim Craven, in a recent interview, said the city will appeal to the Supreme Court if it loses at the court of appeals.
Two women who said they are the fiancées of Geiger inmates affected by Friday’s ruling angrily denounced Peterson’s decision.
Melissa Eckersley said her fiancé, Jimi Sorensen, is at Geiger serving a 90-day sentence for domestic violence. Eckersley said she’s consulted Spokane attorney Gregg R. Smith about a potential lawsuit against the city for continuing to hold him illegally.
There are significant civil rights issues involved in the legal standoff over the municipal courts and they are likely to reach the Washington Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court, Smith said Friday.
“The appeals court has concluded we have people being convicted by those not authorized to issue criminal sanctions. I can see huge social issues on both sides,” Smith said.
A tearful April Evans, who said her fiancé, Kirk Rutherford, has been at Geiger since July on a domestic violence charge, said he has 34 more days on his sentence and she’s afraid he’ll miss Christmas.
“We were hoping they’d be released today. They should have been allowed to be in court. They had a right to see the judge and hear these proceedings. The city has screwed this up and the inmates are penalized,” Evans said.
More motions to release affecting several dozen other inmates will be heard on Dec. 5 and Dec. 12 before two other district court judges, Knox said.