Shore owner acquitted of weapon charge
A Ferry County property owner has been acquitted of a charge that he illegally displayed a weapon in a confrontation with rafters on the Kettle River.
Visiting Spokane County Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen said riverfront property owner Harold J. Honeycutt, 73, wasn’t blameless in a confrontation last July with nine rafters but he intended no threat.
Eitzen also found that other rafters have harassed Honeycutt and blocked his driveway with their cars.
Also, Ferry County Prosecutor James von Sauer was partly responsible for creating a dangerous atmosphere with inflammatory public statements, according to Eitzen.
Von Sauer has publicly declared that the Kettle River is open to public use even though a legally unchallenged 1925 Stevens County Superior Court case says the river is private property because it isn’t navigable as defined by state law.
Eitzen said in May that von Sauer improperly attempted to circumvent the old court decision by charging Honeycutt with coercion for trying to keep people from rafting past his home. A conviction would have implied the river is public.
Von Sauer substituted a charge of unlawful display of a weapon, and Eitzen rejected that Tuesday at the end of a two-day bench trial.
Eitzen ruled that because of the presence of his two grandchildren, Honeycutt couldn’t put down the BB rifle he was carrying when the shouting rafters floated past his yard near Orient, Wash. He didn’t raise the gun when he told the rafters they were trespassing, the judge concluded.
Honeycutt was justified in believing that he was protecting his property, but that wasn’t a valid defense because the river couldn’t be considered his “place of abode,” Eitzen said. She said Honeycutt’s actions wouldn’t have warranted alarm except, possibly, because of the notoriety he had gained.
Because of public tension, Eitzen cautioned Honeycutt to be extra careful about future encounters with rafters.
Honeycutt couldn’t be reached for comment, but his Omak, Wash., attorney, Rodney Reinbold, called last summer’s encounter “an unfortunate misunderstanding all around.”
“The witnesses, who were the rafters in this case, just turned out to be some of the nicest people you could ever meet in your life,” Reinbold said, describing them as farmers from the Almira, Wash., area.
He said the rafters “expected the worst” because of publicity “demonizing” Honeycutt, so they concluded he was armed with a .22-caliber rifle when they saw his BB gun. They began shouting to one another in alarm and Honeycutt, who is hard of hearing, thought they were yelling at him, Reinbold said.
“They couldn’t hear him all that well, either, and so it just turned out to be a terrible misunderstanding,” Reinbold said.
Nevertheless, he said, all the parties “deserve to be complimented” for avoiding violence.
Von Sauer was highly critical of Eitzen’s decision and said he will appeal her earlier ruling that a coercion charge was improper.
“This certainly is going to be the last trial that she hears here,” von Sauer said, vowing to file affidavits of prejudice against Eitzen in the future. “The court’s interpretation of my motives are so far removed from the truth as to be out of the realm of reality.”
The prosecutor said he won’t hesitate to file new charges against Honeycutt or others if they threaten rafters.
But he was less enthusiastic about litigation to overturn the court decision that says the Kettle River isn’t public.
“I am certainly not looking forward to initiating any action of my own accord, but I would certainly respond to events,” he said.
Von Sauer said he thinks a personality conflict between himself and Eitzen “got in the way of finding the facts” in the Honeycutt trial.
Trial minutes show Eitzen found the prosecutor failed to establish basic elements of the alleged crime, such as the fact that it occurred in Washington. And she admonished him for “offensive language.”
Von Sauer said Eitzen objected, “for reasons known only to her,” to his statement that the alleged victims “were not river trash.”