Spokane minister not guilty of hate crime

A local minister was acquitted of a hate crime charge last week by convincing a jury he was acting in defense of his home when he allegedly used a gay slur while throwing out his estranged son and another man.

The incident, in which Derrick G. Moore, 51, physically removed the two men from a shower in his home, prompted felony charges of malicious harassment from the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office. One of the men received a cut above his eye in the scuffle.

Taxpayers will now be responsible to pay Moore’s legal bills, based on a state law that allows defendants to recoup court costs if they successfully argue self-defense. Washington’s laws protect defendants who are defending the lives of themselves or their families, as well as defending “real or personal property.”

Tim Note, Moore’s attorney, said the case hinged on his client’s right to establish rules in his home. He also said Moore was trying to keep several teenagers who were spending the night preparing for a youth church event the next day from seeing the behavior of his son, Antonio Moore, who turned 21 in April.

“We should be able to set the rules of acceptable conduct in our own home,” Note said. He called the prosecution of the case “absurd and offensive.”

But John Love, the Spokane County prosecuting attorney who tried the case, said Derrick Moore could have handled the situation without violence and without hate speech.

“Of course he has the right to make his own rules in his home,” Love said this week. “But do you bust through a locked door and throw two naked men out in the middle of the night in February? Or do you ask them to leave first?”

Neither Derrick nor Antonio Moore responded to interview requests for this story.

The other man contacted police a week after the incident and requested that charges be filed. Both he and Antonio Moore said they went to the home after a night of drinking and were allowed inside, but the defense said they snuck in and were trespassing.

Note said Antonio Moore, who has a history of property and drug crimes, was not allowed to stay overnight. Antonio Moore had told his father he was gay just a few days before the shower incident, Note said.

Derrick Moore was awakened by his wife, who is his son’s stepmother; she told him she suspected his son had brought his friend into the home, Note said. Moore listened at the bathroom door, where the men were allegedly having sex in the shower, then broke in.

A scuffle followed, during which the other man sustained the cut after he was punched by Derrick Moore and pushed into the wall, he told police. The cut did not require stitches. Both men in the shower said Derrick Moore used the slur while dragging them out of the house at about 2:30 a.m.

Derrick Moore said at trial he didn’t remember if he used the word, but admitted he was angry. Note said the incident does not reflect who Moore is. As a minister with the New Destiny Tabernacle Apostolic Church, Moore ministers to young people in the community of all sexual orientations, Note said.

“This guy’s not out in the public square spewing hate, he’s in his own home,” Note said. “He doesn’t hate gay people.”

The decision by the jury, composed of six men and six women, is at least the second time Spokane County has affirmed the protections of property owners from prosecution. Last year, jurors acquitted Gail Gerlach of manslaughter after he shot and killed Brendan Kaluza-Graham, ruling the self-employed journeyman plumber had acted in self-defense. Gerlach’s legal team eventually was granted more than $221,000 in compensation after review by a trial judge.

Note has not submitted costs to the court for Moore’s defense.

Love, the prosecutor, said he didn’t know the jury’s rationale in ruling Moore had acted in self-defense.

Note had argued that Moore’s son, by sneaking into the home and having sex in the shower, was maliciously trespassing, a crime for which state law allows a self-defense argument. The term “malicious” is defined under state law as any act showing an “evil” inclination “to annoy, vex or injure another person.”

Note said the Moores do not allow premarital sex of any kind in their home. But Love said the evidence didn’t show the traditional indications of a self-defense case.

“There was testimony that no one was being hurt, that no property was in threat of being damaged,” Love said. “The defendant himself said what was being assaulted was ‘my mind, and my rules.’ ”

Despite the acquittal, Note said his client regretted his choice of words that night.

“He said, ‘I used a lot of words that night that are not the words I would choose to use in my house,’ ” Note said.