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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sentence vacated for 2012 stabbings outside Spokane bar

A man sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after stabbing two strangers in a drunken brawl outside a Hillyard bar in 2012 likely will have his jail time reduced.

Two appeals court judges Thursday vacated a mandatory sentence given to Donald Lee Dyson Jr., 44, who was convicted in January 2014 of two counts of first-degree assault stemming from the attack outside the Special K tavern. The fight, instigated in the parking lot after a night of heavy drinking and some insults hurled at a woman, left one victim with a slashed throat and another with wounds to his hand and head.

The first victim had life-threatening injuries – a cut jugular vein, larynx and esophagus – following a “round-house”-style slash, witnesses said. The man recovered.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Howard Clarke sentenced him to nearly 22 years in prison. As part of the sentence, Clarke ruled that 10 years of the time would be mandatory – five years each for each assault. Dyson was unable to earn good behavior credits for early release in the first 10 years of his time in prison because of the mandatory portion of the sentence.

Dyson appealed based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires juries – not judges – to determine all elements of a crime that could lead to a minimum period of incarceration.

In its decision, the appeals court sided with Dyson, ordering the case back to Spokane Superior Court to sentence Dyson without mandatory minimum time. The judges did not vacate his conviction, though Dyson made several arguments that he wasn’t given a fair trial.

Dyson, who has two other felony assaults on his record, is housed at the Airway Heights Correctional Center. He went to trial for another unrelated knife attack that occurred weeks before the incident outside Special K, in which prosecutors alleged he’d cut a man’s throat from ear to ear before being shot. The jury found him not guilty in that incident.

The Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office argued against vacating the mandatory sentence, saying such a decision would lead to “endless hearings and jury panels to establish the parameters and application of individual statutes” to a defendant, according to a brief filed by Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Metts.

In his dissent, Judge Kevin Korsmo – a former Spokane County prosecutor – said Clarke’s error was harmless because sentencing guidelines already ensured Dyson would be behind bars for about the same amount of time.

But the decision will allow Dyson to accrue credits for early release while in prison, and he will now be eligible for community custody programs that he was precluded from taking advantage of after the original criminal sentence. No resentencing hearing has been scheduled.