PORT ANGELES — Circumstances surrounding Andrea Freese’s stabbing death of William Boze will be argued again in Clallam County Superior Court at 9:30 a.m. today.
Those testifying will include Boze’s sons, William Boze III and John Boze.
This time, Freese’s fate will rest with Superior Court Judge George L. Wood, not a jury, which convicted her Thursday of second-degree manslaughter for killing Boze on July 28, 2007, in his west Port Angeles home.
Wood, the presiding judge in the case, will decide beyond a reasonable doubt ¬– the same standard as the jury ¬– if two aggravating circumstances should increase her prison time beyond the standard sentence ranges open to Wood — 26 months to 41 months — when he sentences Freese, 34.
Freese decided at a hearing Tuesday to have the judge, rather than the jury, decide whether those circumstances should increase her sentence.
Remorse, vulnerability
Wood, who heard arguments Monday, ruled that Freese’s egregious lack of remorse over killing Boze and Boze’s particular vulnerability should be factored into deciding on a sentence of up to 10 years, the maximum for second-degree manslaughter.
Wood also will factor in Freese’s criminal history, which includes car theft in Arizona and several misdemeanors, County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said.
Kelly argued Tuesday that Freese, diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder, was remorseless when she stifled laughter during her trial.
A sheriff’s deputy assigned to the courtroom said he saw her laugh while her recorded statement to police, in which she described killing Boze, was played to the jury, Kelly said.
“It doesn’t show a lack of remorse. It shows a reaction to a situation,” said county Public Defender John Hayden. “She has a deep history of mental illness.”
Kelly also argued that Boze was especially vulnerable because of his health. At 73, he had emphysema and a heart condition and walked with a cane.
“Our defense on that will be, he wasn’t so vulnerable he couldn’t slug her,” county Public Defender John Hayden said after the hearing.
Freese told police Boze provoked her by punching her in the nose.
Other rulings
Wood ruled against deciding on two other aggravating circumstances.
On whether Freese committed domestic violence, Wood said she did not commit deliberate cruelty or gratuitous violence, nor was the violence committed “as an end in itself.”
On whether Boze was acting as a good Samaritan, Wood said that standard applies only in a single occasion such as an emergency, “not time after time.”
Boze had let Freese live at his house on and off for about two years.
Wood expects to sentence Freese early next week, he said. A date was not set.
At least three of the jury members were in tears when the panel announced its verdict late Thursday afternoon. They could have found her guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or first-degree manslaughter.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladaily news.com.
