Shooter avoids prison time due to delay

A Spokane man who shot two people with a shotgun will avoid 18 months of prison time because the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office moved too slowly.

A Washington Court of Appeals decision this week indicates a firearm enhancement should have added 18 months to the 21-month sentence Mark William Walsh got for shooting his stepson, Sean Ahseln, and Ahseln’s girlfriend, Jennifer Ballard, in February 2001.

Ballard was shot in the face and Ahseln in the abdomen when a shotgun Walsh was wielding apparently fired by accident.

Walsh had indicated he intended to go to his ex-wife’s home to shoot her and her new boyfriend. Ahseln was attempting to restrain Walsh when the gun discharged.

Walsh was charged with two counts of first-degree assault with a firearm, but he was convicted of two counts of third-degree assault with a firearm.

According to the Court of Appeals in Spokane, Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor asked whether the two 18-month firearm sentence enhancements should be concurrent. A deputy prosecutor and a private defense attorney both said yes.

In fact, though, state law says firearm enhancements “shall run consecutively to all other sentencing provisions, including other firearm or deadly weapon enhancements.”

Appellate Judges Stephen Brown, Kenneth Cato and John Schultheis unanimously agreed that O’Connor erred in making Walsh’s firearm enhancements concurrent instead of consecutive. They said the law and a court case “unequivocally” require consecutive sentences.

But the appellate judges also said there was nothing they could do about it because the prosecutor’s office didn’t appeal the error in time.

Walsh filed a timely appeal on three other issues, including a claim of self-defense, but the appeals court rejected all his arguments.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Andy Metts, who handled the county’s appeal but not the trial, called the decision a victory. He called the appellate judges’ statements about the necessity of consecutive sentencing “a throwaway comment … of absolutely no legal import at all.”

The judges made no decision on that issue, he noted. Also, he questioned whether all three judges agreed on that point.

Metts said he thinks the law clearly requires consecutive firearm-enhancement sentences, “but a very experienced and wise trial judge didn’t think so.”