PORT ANGELES — The man convicted of stabbing a Clallam Bay Corrections Center officer with a metal shank in February 2014 was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six additional years in prison.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Christopher Melly sentenced Carlos V. Avalos to the high end of the standard range for an offender with Avalos’ criminal history.
It was the same sentence recommended by Assistant State Attorney General Joshua Choate, who prosecuted the case.
Avalos, who turns 21 on Sunday, is already serving a 10-year prison term for attacking a counselor with a homemade knife at a Chehalis corrections vocational school in June 2012.
A Clallam County jury convicted Avalos of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon for an unprovoked attack on Clallam Bay prison officer Eric Huether on Feb. 3, 2014.
Huether, who was working at a computer terminal when Avalos attacked him with a 4-inch shank, was repeatedly cut on the head, neck and face, court papers said.
Huether recovered from his injuries and returned to work about 10 months later.
Avalos was originally charged with first-degree assault with a deadly weapon for the attack.
He was convicted of the lesser offense Feb. 13.
Avalos will serve his time at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Choate said.
Alex Stalker of Clallam Public Defender had requested a 43-month sentence from a range of 43 to 57 months.
Stalker said his client has all the deterrent he needs to refrain from future offenses: two strikes against him under the three-strikes law.
Avalos would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he were to be convicted of another violent offense.
“There’s no discretion if he gets convicted of an assault 2 again,” Stalker said.
“That’s it. That’s life without possibility of parole, and he’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison.”
“Mr. Avalos is a very young man,” Stalker added. “He’s got the vast majority of his life in front of him.”
Melly disagreed with Stalker’s interpretation of a statute regarding Avalos’ offender score and sentenced Avalos to 70 months, the high end of a 53- to 70-month range.
According to testimony, Avalos’ friends had convinced him that he was disrespected by Huether during a routine, random search in a prison courtyard about a month prior to the assault.
“In what I can only characterize, I guess, as probably an attack short of an ambush, [Avalos] approaches Mr. Huether from behind, where’s he’s seated, and proceeds to stab him multiple times in the neck, in the face, in the throat,” Melly said.
“But for luck — for no other word — Mr. Avalos didn’t hit an eye, an ear, a significant thing in the throat or, probably more importantly, any of the arteries that were going through Mr. Huether’s neck.
“For that, Mr. Avalos, I guess you can consider yourself an extremely lucky man that he wasn’t hit in some tremendously serious place,” Melly said.
“Nevertheless, Mr. Huether was significantly injured.”
Avalos has six felony convictions for assaulting juvenile and corrections staff, Choate has said.
Avalos declined to make a statement at his half-hour sentencing hearing.
He signed papers wearing handcuffs under the watch of four state Department of Corrections officers.
Avalos has 30 days to appeal.
Choate is seeking $44,200 in restitution to the Department of Labor and Industries, which paid for Huether’s medical leave and medical expenses.
He also is seeking $3,391 in restitution for 11 paid holidays Huether missed and his travel to medical appointments.
“While I’m certainly very sorry for Mr. Huether in what happened to him, he basically did get 10 months’ paid vacation,” Stalker said.
“The testimony was the wounds healed relatively quickly. They didn’t take 10 months. He was paid for all that time. He is requesting additional money for that time.
“I’m certainly going to be disputing those figures,” said Stalker, who filed a motion to reconsider the determination of Avalos’ offender score.
Choate took umbrage with the suggestion that Huether was on 10 months’ vacation.
Melly concurred.
“It may be that his wounds were not lethal,” Melly said.
“It may be that his wounds only required 14 stitches. But I have no clue what kind of psychological impact this has had on Mr. Huether. And I have to assume that part of the L&I claim and time away from work was attributable to psychology vs. physiology.”
Melly scheduled a restitution hearing for May 5.
“I think that the attack was cowardly, and I think that the range that has been suggested by the state at the high end is entirely appropriate,” Melly said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
