Appeals court upholds manslaughter mistrial

Fri., Jan. 27, 2006

By John Craig johnc@spokesman.com

A Spokane man accused of beating a friend to death has avoided a manslaughter conviction – so far – because a juror conducted his own medical research and interpreted the law to suit himself.

The state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a Spokane County Superior Court judge properly declared a mistrial in the April 2004 conviction of Brent William Boling, 27, because of juror misconduct. A three-judge panel rejected a prosecution appeal of Judge Kathleen O’Connor’s decision.

Jack Driscoll, chief criminal deputy prosecutor, said the prosecutor’s office now will exercise its right to bring Boling to trial again.

Boling had already gotten a big break because of a controversial state Supreme Court ruling that forced Deputy Prosecutor Shane Smith to reduce a first-degree murder charge to first-degree manslaughter.

Smith originally charged Boling with first-degree murder under a law that allows murder charges if a victim dies in the course of some other felony. Before the case could go to trial, however, the state Supreme Court ruled that the law failed to specify assault as one of the crimes that could lead to a murder charge.

The Legislature subsequently fixed the flaw in the law, but the Supreme Court refused to apply the amendment retroactively.

A jury convicted Boling of first-degree manslaughter, but one of the jurors improperly conducted his own research and devised his own legal theory for finding Boling guilty.

According to the Spokane branch of the Court of Appeals, a juror who had been a biology professor refused to accept the county medical examiner’s conclusion that Shaun C. Sager, 26, was killed by a blow to the head. The juror thought Sager didn’t have enough brain swelling to kill him.

Looking for another way to explain the death, the juror searched the Internet for information that led him to believe Sager died of alcohol poisoning. Testimony indicated that Sager had a blood-alcohol level of 0.28 percent when he quarreled with Boling. Nevertheless, the juror joined the others in convicting Boling as charged.

The juror reasoned that Boling was guilty of first-degree manslaughter because he did nothing to prevent Sagel from drinking even though he knew Sagel was under a court order not to drink.

Boling testified that he was trying to calm Sagel down when he punched and kicked him four or five times.

The juror’s misconduct was discovered when another juror chatted with a prosecution investigator during the Bloomsday race, and the investigator told Judge O’Connor.

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