Thu., July 26, 2012
A Spokane father has been convicted of severely abusing his infant daughter. Tyler L. Jamison, 20, has been in the Spokane County Jail since April 2010, when his 2-month-old daughter, SkyeLynn suffered what Spokane police initially feared would be fatal injuries but has since been...
Fri., July 6, 2012
Three witnesses put the gun in her boyfriend’s hand either during or immediately after a Spokane man was shot last December following a bizarre altercation. But Melinda R. Barrera, 32, admitted pulling the trigger and a jury convicted Thursday her of second-degree murder while acquitting...
Wed., June 27, 2012
A North Idaho jury has cleared a Bonner County Sheriff’s deputy against allegations that he used excessive force during a DUI arrest following a crash with injuries on the road to Schweitzer Mountain Resort. The jury on Friday determined that Deputy Clint Mattingley did not...
Thu., April 26, 2012
A jury awarded an Airway Heights man $300,000 in federal court after he sued a Spokane County Sheriff’s Office deputy over a traffic stop that ended with the man being tackled to the pavement. The jury found that Deputy Dale Moyer was negligent in calling...
Tue., Dec. 20, 2011
A jury on Monday found a man guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the 2007 slaying of a man in Hillyard. As a result, Michael D. Coombes (pictured) faces about seven more years in prison than he would have under an earlier plea agreement,...
Mon., Nov. 7, 2011
An investigator with the U.S. Attorney's Office contacted Northwest Cable News last week to find out what five jurors could have seen if they were exposed to coverage of the Karl Thompson-Otto Zehm trial during breakfast at their Yakima hotel. The news channel says the...
Sat., Nov. 5, 2011
A jury on Friday awarded more than $700,000 to a Spokane police detective they say was wrongly fired and retaliated against by Chief Anne Kirkpatrick. The amount includes $250,000 in punitive damages against Kirkpatrick, who quickly left Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor’s courtroom with Assistant...
Sat., Aug. 27, 2011
A suspended Spokane firefighter’s wrongful arrest lawsuit against the Washington State Patrol over a botched child pornography investigation is headed to trial after an appellate court ruling Wednesday. A three-person panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals says false statements made by WSP investigators...
Fri., Aug. 19, 2011
COLVILLE – Embattled Spokane firefighter Todd Chism won his latest legal battle with the Washington State Patrol on Thursday when a jury cleared him of all charges stemming from a violent 2010 confrontation that injured him and two Washington State Patrol troopers. A Stevens County...
Mon., July 25, 2011
A federal jury in Spokane convicted a 22-year-old Colville tribal member of involuntary manslaughter Friday. Rudy M. Garcia was acquitted of first-degree murder and other lesser included offenses following a two-week trial in U.S. District Court, said Tom Rice, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office....
Wed., July 20, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal jury has unanimously convicted a former Coeur d'Alene-area developer of crafting a murder-for-hire scheme to kill a prosecutor and key witnesses in a North Idaho drug case. Kelly J. Polatis was found guilty Wednesday of 14 combined counts...
Tue., July 5, 2011
A Sandpoint biker awaiting trial on charges of recruiting criminal gang members was drawn to crime because of a rare gender disorder that causes him to be self conscious about his masculinity, his lawyer says. Dale Michael Champine, 42, (right) suffers from epilepsy, bi-polar disorder,...
Fri., May 6, 2011
Idaho U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson is pictured after the verdict. In back, from left to right, are two unidentified officials, Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci Whelan, FBI Special Agent Mike Sotka and Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Haws. Above that photo is a slideshow of photos showing...
Sat., April 30, 2011
The families on three sides of a stabbing death of a Spokane man sobbed Friday as a jury returned guilty verdicts against the man and woman who fought the man they killed in 2009. The jury found Matthew M. Nedeau and Maggie M. Tyler, both...
Wed., March 9, 2011
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Jurors have convicted the first Craigslist killing defendant to go on trial of first-degree murder in the death of a Tacoma-area man gunned down in his home after advertising a diamond ring for sale. Pierce County Superior Court jurors deliberated only...
Fri., Feb. 18, 2011
A Spokane Valley man was cleared Thursday of charges that he assaulted the sheriff’s deputies who shot him in 2009, leaving him paralyzed below the chest. David J. Glidden, 28, broke into tears as the Spokane County Superior Court jury read the verdict of “not...
Fri., Feb. 11, 2011
Wails from a victim’s daughter filled the courtroom just after the judge read what was presented as a unanimous acquittal. But seconds later, a juror said she didn’t agree with the verdict. Then five more said the same thing. The bizarre series of events, which...
Thu., Jan. 27, 2011
A jury Wednesday exonerated a Spokane County Sheriff’s detective who has been the subject of several excessive force complaints. The jury found unanimously for Spokane County in a case that began with a traffic stop on Jan. 22, 2006 by Jeff Welton, who was a...
Fri., Dec. 10, 2010
A jury today convicted a Spokane woman of three counts of vehicular assault for a crash that injured three police detectives last summer. Tonia S. Vansant, 38, faces 33 to 43 months in prison when she’s sentenced Jan. 6, said Deputy Prosecutor Mary Ann Brady....
Tue., Dec. 7, 2010
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A jury in Tacoma returned mixed verdicts today against four people accused of helping Maurice Clemmons after he gunned down four Lakewood police officers in a coffeeshop last year. Two of the defendants — Clemmons’ aunt Letrecia Nelson and his cousin...
Thu., Sept. 30, 2010
A Spokane man faces a minimum of 45 years in prison after a jury convicted him Wednesday of two counts of murder that followed a dispute over a car swap. The jury convicted 28-year-old Merle W. Harvey of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting...
Wed., June 16, 2010
A motorist who ran over a Spokane man near Finch Arboretum two years ago was acquitted of vehicular homicide on Tuesday. William L. Hagy, 31, argued he never saw the victim, 51-year-old Robert Kenyon, who was crossing an unmarked crosswalk on Nov. 20, 2007, and...
Thu., Feb. 4, 2010
A jury cleared a former North Idaho doctor this week of allegations that he overprescribed drugs nearly a decade ago. Chris Arthur Christensen was acquitted on three federal charges in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene after a week-long jury trial. It was the second...
Fri., Jan. 29, 2010
A child rapist faces life in prison after a Spokane County jury convicted him Friday of three crimes involving sexual assaults against prostitutes. Pierre D. West, 49, clenched his jaw and shook his head as Superior Court Judge Michael Price said a jury had convicted...
Fri., Jan. 22, 2010
It took a Spokane jury as many minutes as the defendant has felonies to convict him this week of two more crimes. Sean M. Maney, 45, was taken to jail Thursday after Judge Tari Eitzen read guilty verdicts on residential burglary and attempted theft of...
Public safety news from the Inland Northwest and beyond.
