Clemency Rejected In Cop Killing Ex-Prosecutor’s Letter Citing New Information In Orchard Murder Fails To Persuade Panel

The man convicted of killing a Spokane detective 13 years ago will get no clemency from Washington Gov. Mike Lowry.

The governor’s clemency board voted 3-2 to deny Lonnie Link’s request for a reduced sentence. Link, 38, will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole.

“(Lowry’s) habit has been to let the clemency board decision stand,” said Martin Munguia, the governor’s spokesman.

The board voted to deny Link clemency despite a letter from former Spokane County Prosecutor Donald Brockett that shed new light on the case.

Brockett, who prosecuted Link, said new information surfaced during Link’s appeal that would have altered his approach to the original trial, which he pursued as a death penalty case.

“Had I known of the facts that I learned later, I would have allowed Mr. Link to plead guilty to firstdegree murder, resulting in a much different sentence,” Brockett wrote in a letter to Lowry that was forwarded to the board.

“Had the jury heard this evidence, their decision might have been different.”

Brockett told the board he learned long after the trial that Link may have thought detective Brian Orchard was a Ghost Riders motorcycle gang member bent on killing him as the detective approached him outside a downtown motel in July 1983.

Link apparently told his attorney that information, but it never came out in court, Brockett wrote in the letter.

Brockett said in an interview Tuesday that Link apparently feared that his family would be harmed if he testified about the gang.

Link, who was involved in an extortion plot, shot Orchard in the head at point-blank range as the father of three moved in to arrest him as part of a sting.

In 1984, a jury deliberated for nearly 40 hours before convicting Link of aggravated first-degree murder in the case.

Jurors concluded Link knew Orchard, 38, was a cop before he killed him. They sentenced the previously convicted felon to life without parole.

Had Link pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, he would have been eligible for parole after serving about 20 years in prison.

Death or life without parole are the only possible sentences for an aggravated first-degree murder conviction.

Doug Orchard, the victim’s brother, said the new evidence in Brockett’s letter didn’t matter.

Orchard, who traveled to Olympia to address the clemency board, said detectives testified during Link’s trial that Orchard identified himself as a police officer as he approached the car Link was sitting in.

“The question of identity, in my mind, certainly was never in question,” he said. “Obviously, the jury accepted that same thing, that identity had been made.”

Link, who’s been in prison since the trial, did not attend the clemency board hearing, nor did his attorneys.

, DataTimes