Man granted new trial in child rape case

A Spokane man convicted of child rape in 2006 has been granted a new trial because jurors were questioned in private before his trial began.

Dallin D. Fort, 39, is serving a 132-month sentence at Airway Heights Corrections Center for raping a 9-year-old in 2003. Fort was 27 at the time. A  unanimous decision by a three-member panel of the Washington Courts of Appeal’s Third Division on Tuesday vacated that sentence and ordered a new trial.

The court’s decision was made based on a previous Washington Supreme Court opinion,  State v. Frawley, which found that jury selection could not occur outside the courtroom unless the judge made a written ruling determining a court closure was justified. Trial judges in Washington routinely questioned potential jurors behind closed doors in cases involving alleged sexual crimes before that decision, resulting in several convictions being overturned in the past few years.

Judge George B. Fearing, writing for the majority in Fort’s case, acknowledged that a new trial would be costly and potentially traumatic for the victim, but said “the sanctity of constitutional rights and Supreme Court precedence compel that we grant Dallin Fort a new trial.”

Fort twice appealed his conviction, the first filed just months after his sentence was handed down in February 2006. The court found that his lawyer provided ineffective counsel when they did not raise the issue of a public trial during the first appeal, which ended in the appellate court affirming his conviction in September 2007.

No trial date has been scheduled.