Hung jury leads to mistrial of former SPS coach accused of rape

A King County jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict to determine whether a former Seattle Public Schools volunteer coach accused of repeatedly raping a former Garfield High School student was guilty.

A hung jury prompted King County Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan to declare a mistrial in the criminal trial of Walter Jones late Tuesday morning, after five days of jury deliberations, which followed a week of testimony last month.

Deliberations were interrupted numerous times. Once when a juror got sick, and again when another juror was dismissed for doing outside research about the state’s sexual assault statutes, which required an alternate juror to step in, and deliberations to be restarted. The Thanksgiving holiday marked the third pause in deliberations.

Jones, 48, is charged with two counts of rape of a child in the second degree and two counts of rape of a child in the third degree. If convicted, he could face up to 23 years in prison, according to a spokesperson at the King County prosecuting attorney’s office.

A spokesperson for the prosecution said Tuesday attorneys will meet to discuss next steps, but declined to provide additional details, citing professional conduct rules that prohibit comments that could influence future juries.

Attorneys for the defense declined to comment.

On Tuesday, Jones appeared on Zoom with his hand over his face and his fingers rubbing his eyes as Ryan set a new trial date of March 3, 2026. A different judge will likely preside over the new trial.

In November, prosecutors argued the former student’s life changed forever when Jones, a volunteer weightlifting coach at Garfield High School, started raping her in fall 2013. At the time she was an eighth grader at Washington Middle School who was practicing with the high school basketball team due to her promising athletic talent. Jones, 23 years older than the student, continued to regularly rape her into her high school years on and off campus and in his car, according to prosecutors.

The Seattle Times typically does not name victims of sexual assault.

The former student did not report the rapes to police until 2021 – after she had left for college and built more confidence, prosecutors said. They added that the victim did tell a few people about the assaults before going to the police; some of those witnesses testified last month.

Defense attorneys argued that the former student was lying, and that none of the rapes happened. They contended the former student concocted the lie in high school, after she overheard Jones tell a group of football players to stay away from her.

The defense attorneys claimed the former student’s lie grew in March 2021, when she reported Jones to police in an attempt to prove to her much-older, emotionally abusive boyfriend that she was not lying about Jones.

That boyfriend at the time was Marvin Hall, one of Garfield High School’s assistant boys basketball coaches. Hall and Jones were both named in a civil case the former student filed last year against Seattle Public Schools, which argued the district failed to protect her from the two coaches who emotionally and sexually abused her.

The civil lawsuit resulted in a $16 million settlement – the largest in the district’s history. Last summer, Hall pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor.

In closing arguments in mid-November, defense attorney Hannah Roman acknowledged that the former student had suffered trauma from other sexual assaults she endured. “She was raped when she was 12 by an entirely different person. She was in an abusive relationship with a much, much older man for many years,” said Roman. “But that does not mean that she is telling the truth about Walter Jones.”

In 2013 – around the same time the former student claimed Jones began allegedly raping her – Eric Turner pleaded guilty and was convicted of raping the former student. He ultimately served seven years in prison, according to the Department of Corrections.

The former student, now 25, took the witness stand for a day and a half, and detailed several alleged rapes by Jones. She testified that the rapes began in 2013, when Jones picked her up for a basketball practice session and instead of training in the gym, brought her to a home in West Seattle, where he began kissing her, exposed himself, and then raped her.

The former student described in excruciating detail several other times Jones allegedly raped her, including at homes in Skyway and Rainier Beach. She also described incidents of sexual assault that she said happened in the bushes outside of Garfield High School, in the weight room at Garfield, and in Jones’ car.

In the cross-examination, defense attorney Dennis Martin noted how close the rape by Turner was to the first alleged rape by Jones. The former student alleges Jones began raping her in October 2013, which the defense noted would have been while she was being supported by a therapist and victims advocate related to the Turner rape. Turner was sentenced in December 2013.

The defense’s cross-examination suggested that Hall, who was dating the former student at the time she reported Jones, pressured the student to lie to district officials and investigators to conceal her relationship with Hall. They also pointed to discrepancies in the timeline and details of the student’s statements to police and in prior defense interviews.

Prosecuting attorneys rebutted in closing arguments, noting that inconsistencies often emerge when people are asked to repeatedly recount traumatic events.

The prosecution closed by arguing that the former student was not less credible because she was previously raped, but that she was specifically targeted because of it.

“Jones specifically chose (the former student), someone who had been sexually abused as a 12-year-old by an adult, to target, to rape, thinking that if she were to disclose this later on, nobody would believe her,” said prosecuting attorney Alexandra Robins in closing arguments.