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Port defendants prevail

By Christian Hill | The Olympian • Published June 13, 2007

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OLYMPIA — Citing “gross negligence” by Thurston County prosecutors, a judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against 16 people accused of trespassing during a protest of a military shipment at the Port of Olympia last year.

The courtroom erupted in raucous celebration when Thurston County District Court Judge Susan Dubuisson announced the dismissal of the cases, after earlier in the 31/2-hour hearing saying she wasn’t inclined to do so.

“I make that decision with great regret,” she said.

The fact that prosecutors belatedly provided the co-defendants with new reports from Thurston County Sheriff’s deputies and detectives who were on the scene during the May 30 protest forced her hand, Dubuisson said.

As a result, she continued, the codefendants didn’t have enough time to pursue leads in the newly disclosed documents to prepare their defenses before the first of three trials was scheduled to begin next week.

Speedy trial date loomed

All of the trials had to be under way by June 25, a schedule dictated by the co-defendants’ right to a speedy trial. Dubuisson had several options to remedy the conflict between ensuring a speedy trial and giving the co-defendants adequate time to prepare their defense, including delaying the trials.

She acknowledged that dismissal was an “extraordinary remedy” but ruled it was warranted because prosecutors’ belated delivery of the new reports was “gross negligence, not timely in a big way.”

Prosecutors had requested the reports from deputies and detectives who hadn’t filed a report in the lead-up to the co-defendants’ first trial. The proceeding ended in a mistrial in late March when prosecutors obtained confidential jury information from an unnamed source that had been obtained from an e-mail listserv maintained by the codefendants.

Without telling the co-defendants, the prosecutors had requested the reports from the sheriff’s office so both sides would have more information about the incident in preparation for the new trials, said Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jim Powers, the third prosecutor to become involved in the year-old case.