Karen Dorn Steele

The U.S. Department of Energy has tentatively agreed to settle the claims of 139 people with thyroid disease – the largest settlement so far in a massive civil suit brought by people exposed as children to clouds of radioactive iodine from Hanford during World War II and the early years of the Cold War. Details of the proposed settlement, which must be accepted by the individual plaintiffs, were filed this week in U.S. District Court in Spokane.

The Washington State Bar Association may be joining the legal debate over whether a Spokane jury’s racially charged remarks against a plaintiff’s lawyer during deliberations in a medical malpractice trial were sufficient grounds to nullify the verdict. The bar association’s Amicus Brief Committee has recommended that the bar’s board of governors vote at its April meeting in Richland to approve a request to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the 2007 case, Turner v. Stime.

The Spokane Police Department has launched its internal investigation of suspended officer Jay Olsen amid widespread public outrage over Friday’s jury verdict that acquitted Olsen of shooting a man in the head and firing bullets into Peaceful Valley.

The fate of suspended Spokane police Officer Jay Olsen, charged with shooting Shonto Pete in the head and sending a volley of bullets into Peaceful Valley two years ago, is in the jury’s hands. A standing-room-only crowd, including supporters of Olsen and Pete, packed Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque’s courtroom Thursday afternoon to hear closing arguments.

In the midst of his first-degree assault trial, suspended Spokane police officer Jay Olsen has been hit with a new federal lawsuit seeking unspecified monetary damages for shooting Shonto Pete in the head on February 26, 2007.

Sudden threat – or deadly pursuit? Two competing versions of the February 2007 incident that ended with Shonto Pete shot in the head and assault charges against suspended police officer Jay Olsen began to emerge Wednesday during testimony in Olsen’s trial in Spokane County Superior Court.

A Spokane County jury has ruled that Donald T. Townsend is a sexually violent predator who should be confined indefinitely. The jury delivered its verdict Wednesday morning in the courtroom of Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome J. Leveque, who presided over Townsend’s civil commitment trial. The jury got the case late Tuesday and deliberated only a few hours.

A Spokane County jury has ruled that Donald T. Townsend is a sexually violent predator who should be confined indefinitely in a state institution for sex offenders.

The fate of a Spokane man with a long history of sexually abusing children is in the hands of a Superior Court jury.

Three men in their 20s accused by an 18-year-old OxyContin addict of assisting in a robbery and assault of two Spokane drug dealers last year were acquitted Tuesday of attempted first-degree murder. But a Spokane County Superior Court jury found the three men guilty of first-degree assault, first-degree robbery and drive-by shooting, with an enhanced sentence for the use of a shotgun. It was a case in which the prosecutor’s office drew a judicial sanction, the star witness got a light sentence in a juvenile facility and some of the reluctant witnesses from the drug underworld gave conflicting testimony.

Three men in their 20s accused by an 18-year-old Oxycontin addict of assisting in a robbery and assaulting two Spokane drug dealers last year were acquitted today of attempted first-degree murder. But a Spokane County Superior Court jury did find the three men guilty of first-degree assault and drive-by shooting.

The state is hanging its felony case in the armed robbery of two Spokane drug dealers on an 18-year-old OxyContin addict who borrowed his mother’s pickup to serve as the getaway driver for the April 2008 heist. Matthew Dunham, 17 at the time of the robbery, is the state’s star witness in the trial of Tyler W. Gassman, Robert E. Larson and Paul E. Statler, who have pleaded innocent.

The city of Spokane has begun the search for a police ombudsman, a position that got strong public support after several recent controversies, including the 2006 death of mentally disabled janitor Otto Zehm in a confrontation with police. The job will pay $77,130 to $94,628 annually. The successful applicant will be appointed for a three-year term and can be reappointed to a second three-year term. The deadline to apply is Feb. 27.

The city of Spokane has begun the search for a police ombudsman, a position that got strong public support after several recent controversies, including the 2006 death of mentally disabled janitor Otto Zehm in a confrontation with police.

It was a drug deal gone bad – but who was involved? In a Spokane County Superior Court jury trial that began Monday, the state is accusing three men of taking part in the April 17 home-invasion robbery of several drug dealers negotiating an OxyContin purchase.

The Washington Court of Appeals in Spokane has ordered a self-styled “tax protester” to pay $1,000 to the federal government for filing a frivolous appeal.