Prosecutor Calls Defense Brief in NK Vehicular Homicide Case ‘A Tangled Mess’
April 8th, 2009 by josh farley
The case against a North Kitsap man accused of a
drunken driving crash
that killed a 34-year-old woman is proceeding to trial, albeit
at a glacial pace.
That’s primarily due to a number of arguments a judge needs to
decide concerning what attorneys in the case will — and will not —
be able to tell a jury.
Stephen T. Harvey, 34, is charged by prosecutors with one count of vehicular homicide. The sheriff’s office says that on Jan. 21, 2008, Harvey was driving while intoxicated when his car hit another vehicle, driven by Jessica Z. Torres, 34, of Port Orchard. Torres, who was driving home from work on Clear Creek Road, was killed in the crash.
Fast forward to April 2009, to what deputy prosecutor Cami Lewis
called “a tangled mess.”
Harvey’s attorney, Alton McFaddon, recently filed a brief that is about 100 pages long, and includes many more hundreds of pages of transcripts from other DUI related cases around the state.
Lewis responded to it bluntly.
“The defense has filed extensive briefing in this case that can only be described as an attempt to inundate the State and the Court with frivolous and irrelevant documents and arguments,” Lewis wrote in her responding brief.
Lewis called the defense’s effort “a massive ‘cutting and pasting’ endeavor,” of briefs filed in other cases, and that the defense “repeats itself countless times over the span,” of the 100 pages.
Lewis points out that on page 81 of the brief, it says “By this point it is hard to say anything without repeating oneself,” to which Lewis writes that “yet (the brief) continues on for nineteen more pages repeating the same arguments.”
I left three messages for McFaddon, but he’s yet to return my calls.
His defense brief, in part, discusses corruption at the Washington State Crime lab. Its former manager, Ann Marie Brown Gordon, resigned in 2007 from the crime lab amid allegations that she signed off on batches of solutions that ensure breath-test accuracy without checking them.
Brown’s Gordon’s resignation had wide ranging implications for DUI and DUI-related cases around the state. But deputy prosecutor Lewis points out Harvey’s blood was examined in 2008, thus Brown’s Gordon’s resignation shouldn’t be an issue.
On Monday, Judge Jay B. Roof ruled that the crime lab issue regarding Gordon’s resignation was irrelevant to the case. Roof also denied a motion to suppress the blood work done there from jury arguments due to privacy rights violations.
The trial is set for May 26. But there are other motions Roof will consider prior to trial.
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April 10th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Actually… the motion for the “crime lab” will be heard May 26th. It has not been found to be irrelevant yet! The only ruling Judge Roof has made, was to deny a motion to suppress blood evidence based around an officer and the hospital staff.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
KC,
I was told by the deputy prosecutor that the court had ruled anything that happened with the blood testing at the state’s crime lab is irrelevant to the case. But there are additional motions to be decided prior to trial, I’m also told.
-Josh
April 10th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
One of the additional motions to be heard starting the 26th of May is another motion to suppress blood evidence.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
KC,
You are right. I spoke to deputy prosecutor Lewis, and found there are still motions regarding the blood testing for Roof to rule on.
-Josh
April 20th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Stephen, just own up to the fact that what you did was wrong. Why keep prolonging the pain for everyone involved. We all make mistakes, it is just that some of us are man enough to take responsibility.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Can anyone tell me why 41 months was the longest sentence Harvey could get for felony vehicular homicide?