Drug suspect adds appeal victory

Conventional wisdom says that even a lawyer, not to mention a layman who drives around with a meth lab, is foolish to represent himself in court.

Not David Lloyd Meckelson, though. Lately, he’s doing well with or without lawyers.

The 41-year-old former car salesman proved himself a remarkably successful do-it-yourself trial lawyer in February 2005, when he persuaded a Spokane County jury to acquit him of charges that he manufactured and delivered methamphetamine.

Meckelson successfully undercut the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, his alleged partner in crime, Kenneth L. Cossey, 36. Who could believe Cossey when he claimed he gave a stranger – Meckelson – a ride in May 2003 without noticing the meth lab the stranger slipped into the trunk, Meckelson asked.

“In your professional opinion, who’s responsible for a vehicle – the driver or the passenger?” Meckelson asked the arresting officer, Spokane police Sgt. Brad Thoma.

“The driver,” Meckelson repeated for emphasis when Thoma conceded the obvious.

“Officer Thoma, have you ever pulled a vehicle over for speeding and given the passenger the ticket?” Meckelson continued.

The jury convicted Meckelson only of drug possession, for which sentences are measured in months instead of years. He could have gotten up to 10 years had he been convicted of manufacturing and delivering meth.

Now, with help from a real lawyer, Meckelson will get a second chance to beat the possession charge, too.

The Spokane branch of the Washington Court of Appeals has ruled that court-appointed defense attorney Tim Trageser should have sought a pretrial hearing to throw out all the evidence against Meckelson.

Trageser declined to comment on the ruling except to say, “I just need to take it like a man and be a better lawyer for it.”

Trageser represented Meckelson until the case went to trial, and Meckelson decided to take over.

Although Trageser unsuccessfully challenged Thoma’s right to search the car’s trunk, he didn’t pursue Meckelson’s request for a hearing to argue that the underlying traffic stop was improper.

Private attorney Susan Gasch, who handled Meckelson’s appeal for the public defender’s office, argued that Trageser’s failure to pursue a “plausible” attack on the traffic stop constituted “ineffective assistance of counsel.”

Court of Appeals Judges Dennis Sweeney, John Schultheis and Kenneth Kato agreed and overturned Meckelson’s drug-possession conviction. If Meckelson is tried again on the charge, he must get a hearing on whether the traffic stop was just a “pretext,” the judges ruled.

Police are allowed to stop motorists for failure to signal, as in this case, but not if the real reason is unsupported suspicion of an unrelated crime.

Thoma said in court that Cossey seemed alarmed, with a “deer-in-the-headlight” look, when the officer pulled alongside Cossey’s vehicle. Thoma said he started to drop behind Cossey’s car to check the registration when Cossey suddenly made a right turn without signaling.

Superior Court Judge Linda Tompkins was wrong when she told Meckelson he could argue at trial that Thoma wouldn’t have stopped Cossey’s car except for “the legally insufficient reason that he thought the driver looked at him funny,” the appeals court said.

If Tompkins had suppressed the drug evidence, “there would have been no trial,” the appellate judges said.

In another of Meckelson’s cases, a deputy prosecutor recently agreed on appeal to drop a sentence-padding firearms “enhancement.” But Meckelson’s overall record is still far from enviable.

Before his successful debut as a jailhouse lawyer, Meckelson lost two other drug trials and was sentenced to nearly 15 years in prison.