Freedom 2015

At the beginning of March, we received a case from the public defender's office.  The defendant was currently in jail.  He had been there for three months and bail was one-hundred-thousand-dollars.  The case involved multiple serious felonies involving the use of a shotgun.  The defendant's options were, plead guilty and take a ten year sentence or risk going to trial and if found guilty, face a sixteen year sentence.  I reviewed discovery and had numerous immediate questions.  First step, was I needed to locate and interview the victim and separate "witness."

Back in the early years of my law enforcement career, I had the forever appreciative opportunity to be mentored and work with some of the best and talented veteran narcotics detectives with SPD.  One of the things, I learned was how to locate people that did not want to be found.  I located the victim and interviewed him.  His comment was: "How the fuck did you find me."  The other important step I learned, was when trying to locate and interview a homeless person and/or drug addict, was to put on a pair of tennis shoes and walk to every homeless shelter in downtown Seattle, which is what I did.  I left my business card and a handwritten letter for the witness at each shelter.  I also checked the motels on Aurora Ave N.  The very next day, I received a call from the witness and he agreed to meet me.  I also followed up on information learned during the case by LE, which lead me to Snohomish County where I interviewed another subject.  His information paramount and no LE had ever telephoned him.   

You would think it would be easier to get into contact, schedule a date and time, to interview a detective and/or officer, but that is not the case.  There was a total of seven to eight LE involved in this case.      

After two weeks of investigating this case and reviewing case law, we made our recommendation to the public defender.  On Tuesday morning, the senior deputy prosecutor office signed the order for release, by the afternoon the defendant, an innocent man, walked out of jail a free man and into the arms of his family and children. 

Besides the obvious, our investigation coupled with the extraordinary talent and dedication of the public defender, we saved the tax payers a costly trial and the cost to incarcerate an innocent man.  Washington State tax payers would have ultimately paid the cost to incarcerate the defendant, which is approximately between $23.00 and $26.00? a day, times 365 days, times 16 years: $151,840 total.