Thomas Clouse

The same week Spokane city officials and the family of Otto Zehm celebrated the settlement of a civil suit stemming from his death, a federal judge held a rare private hearing in Yakima where he allowed defense attorneys to question the jurors who convicted former Spokane police Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. of using excessive force on Zehm. According to interviews and court records, U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle provided no public notice of his decision or reasoning behind holding the hearings.

The murder trial is under way of a man and woman charged in the shooting death late last year of a man who called police as he was dying from a gunshot wound in his bedroom. Melinda R. Barrera, 32, and David C. McLaughlin, 22, are charged with second-degree murder in connection to the Dec. 7 shooting death of 46-year-old Robert A. Nelson. Their trial opened Wednesday.

A convicted felon from Stevens County faces a minimum of 123 years in prison after a jury found him guilty Friday of 21 new charges, including stealing the gun used to murder a Colville man last year. The jury deliberated about three hours before finding Christopher G. Nichols, who turned 27 on Thursday, guilty of nine counts of being a felon in a possession of a firearm and nine counts of theft of a firearm, burglary, auto theft and trafficking in stolen property in the first degree.

A convicted felon from Stevens County now faces a minimum of 123 years in prison after a jury found him guilty today of 21 new felonies that were tied to the slaying last year of a Colville man.

The final of five defendants pleaded guilty Thursday to kidnapping in connection with a case where a woman was tied up in a Spokane hotel and had her head shaved before being dumped in a rock pit by her assailants. Desiree N. Walling, 31, pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping as part of an Alford plea, which acknowledges prosecutors could likely prove the charge. She was sentenced to 51 months in prison. She also agreed to plead guilty to first-degree and second-degree trafficking in stolen property as part of a separate sentence that will run at the same time as the kidnapping incarceration.

The final of five suspects pleaded guilty Thursday to kidnapping in connection with a case where a woman was tied up in a Spokane hotel and had her head shaved before being dumped in a rock pit by her assailants.

Stoned-while driving case hangs, again

Spokane man guilty of tire-iron attack

A second jury in nine months failed to agree on whether a Deer Park man’s marijuana use caused a fatal crash, highlighting the lack of accepted legal standards for when motorists should be considered too stoned to drive. A Spokane County jury deliberated about seven hours before announcing the impasse Tuesday in the vehicular homicide trial of Jonathon P. Bales, 22, who caused the crash on July 26, 2010, that killed 54-year-old Rene Blaume. Verdicts require unanimous decisions.

A jury of seven men and five women convicted a Spokane man Tuesday of attacking an Iraqi refugee with a tire iron and leaving him with severe head injuries. Sentencing has not been set, but 25-year-old Grant T. McAdams faces somewhere between 17 and 22 years in prison after being found guilty of first-degree assault and first-degree robbery for the May 9, 2011, attack that nearly killed Emad Mohammed Salih, who immigrated to Spokane after helping the U.S. military in his native Iraq.

Split justices uphold murder convictions

The two Washington State Patrol troopers whose botched child pornography investigation cost taxpayers $2.4 million have been transferred off a sex crimes unit but have not faced any discipline for providing false information to a judge. WSP Sgt. John Sager and Trooper Rachel Gardner are back on patrol and will not be placed on what’s known as a “Brady” list for officers known to have lied on the job, WSP spokesman Bob Calkins said.

When are you too stoned to drive?

2nd trial begins in fatal scooter crash

A Spokane County jury saw graphic photographs and heard descriptions Tuesday of the tire-iron attack last year against an Iraqi refugee who had come to the United States after helping the U.S. military. Deputy Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz told the jury how the gruesome beating took place. But, Steinmetz did not say why Grant T. McAdams, 25, allegedly committed attempted first-degree murder and first-degree robbery on May 9, 2011.

Spokane Mayor David Condon said Friday that the Lilac City’s next police chief will not come from the ranks of the Spokane Police Department and indicated that he favors consolidating some police functions with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office. Condon said he’s reopening the search for chief, which no longer includes Interim Chief Scott Stephens.