Jerry Boot Seeks Hearing

Wed., Jan. 25, 1995

William Miller Staff writer

The lawyer for Jerry Boot is asking a judge to strike down the state law that sent the 16-year-old accused killer automatically to adult court.

Boot deserves a hearing on whether he should be prosecuted as a juvenile or an adult, said attorney John Rodgers of Spokane.

“By being forced to be tried as an adult … Mr. Boot is being deprived of his due process rights,” Rodgers argued in a motion filed Tuesday.

Under unusually heavy security, Boot and his cousin, Kevin, 17, were arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Superior Court.

Both are charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the Dec. 29 kidnap-killing of Felicia Reese. Authorities say the pair forced her into a car at gunpoint, took $43 from her purse and shot her in the head.

No trial date has been set.

Because of the murder charge, the Boots automatically are being prosecuted as adults. They are being held in jail in lieu of $1 million bail. Last summer, revamped juvenile justice laws took effect in Washington requiring all 16- and 17-year-old suspects accused of certain violent crimes to be charged as adults.

Rodgers claims that change in the law is unconstitutional.

He argues that Jerry Boot’s lack of an extensive criminal record entitles him to an initial hearing in Juvenile Court.

Kevin Boot has had 18 convictions as a juvenile for stealing, assaulting people and threatening others with guns and knives, records show. He is being prosecuted as an adult for the first time.

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