PORT ANGELES — A war of words over conviction-rate numbers espoused by Clallam County prosecuting attorney hopefuls continued unabated at a forum this week — until a challenger brought up another issue, accusing a member of the incumbent’s staff of lying.
Near the end of the hour-long back-and-forth at the Port Angeles Library on Tuesday night, challenger Larry Freedman asserted a deputy prosecuting attorney on two-term incumbent Deb Kelly’s staff “lied” in a court filing.
Kelly said she was “appalled” at the comment, calling it “absolutely false.”
Kelly, Sequim attorney Freedman and Port Angeles attorney Lauren Erickson appeared at a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Clallam County, answering questions offered by the audience of about 100 at the Port Angeles Library’s Raymond Carver Room.
The three — Freedman, 72; Erickson, 54; and Kelly, 57, a Port Angeles resident and two-term incumbent — are vying in the Aug. 17 top-two primary, in which the two who receive the most votes will face off in the Nov. 2 general election.
Three candidates in the race for Clallam County District Court 1 judge also were featured at the forum. A report on that portion of the forum will be published Friday.
At the prosecuting attorney candidates forum, moderated by Anne Hastings Murray, candidates gave rebuttals to opening statements and were allowed timed, one-minute responses to all questions, including those asked solely of individual candidates.
On Tuesday night, Freedman referred to a case earlier this year in which Kelly’s office was fined $500 by Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor after he ruled that Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Erika Soublet included false statements in a motion to the court.
In his March 2 ruling imposing the sanction, Taylor never used the word “lie” or any variation of the word and said the motion “was brought in good faith.”
Taylor said that a statement in Soublet’s motion was “incorrect” and “disparaging” toward Port Angeles lawyer Karen Unger, and that Soublet committed “a breach of the duty of candor towards the tribunal and opposing counsel.”
Kelly has appealed the sanction to the state Court of Appeals.
“It probably will be some time yet before there is a decision,” she said Wednesday.
The $500 sanction came up in Freedman’s answer to a question on changes the candidates would make in the prosecuting attorney’s office if any one of them is elected.
Freedman pledged that “a deputy [prosecutor] that lied to the court . . . would be gone.”
Taylor fined the prosecuting attorney’s for Soublet incorrectly saying in her motion that a defendant was in the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and that Unger “apparently” represents the club.
The police probable cause statement said the defendant, Roger D. Mallicott, was a member of the Amigos motorcycle club and attempted to call Unger after he was involved in a fatal accident Aug. 16, 2009.
Soublet did not provide facts to prove Unger represented the club.
In her request for sanctions, Unger accused Soublet of “unethical intimidation.”
When Taylor made his ruling, Kelly told the Peninsula Daily News that “this office has taken the appropriate lesson from this and I have no doubt that we will be exceptionally careful in review of our pleadings.”
At the forum Tuesday, Kelly said, “I’m appalled Mr. Freedman would use the term that one of my deputies lied. That is just false.”
Kelly said Soublet only got the name of motorcycle gang wrong.
“The court found no malicious purpose in that misstatement. That is not a lie.”
Soublet was unavailable for comment Wednesday. Neither Freedman nor Unger returned a call for comment.
Erickson and Freedman took issue with the 91 percent conviction rate in the last 3 ½ years cited by Kelly.
Freedman said the rate was actually 68 percent in 2009 and that 39 percent pleaded guilty or were found guilty of what they were charged over the last five years.
Erickson said a 91 percent rate shows her that there is not enough communication between the prosecuting attorney’s office and defense lawyers.
A 91 percent conviction rate, she said, “means to me that there are cases going to trial that don’t need to.”
Freedman also said Kelly is overcharging defendants, “forcing cases to go to trial when they don’t need to.”
Kelly responded that 16 of 17 trials in 2010 have ended in convictions.
But she did not know how many of the 91 percent conviction rate was due to juries finding defendants guilty of lesser charges than those she had filed.
“I’m too busy running an office,” she said.
More conviction rate information is at www.courts.wa.gov, sponsored by the state Administrative Office of the Courts.
Erickson said changes she would make in the office would include hiring a chief criminal deputy prosecutor.
She would not go into more details.
“I do not want to disrupt the office by making public statements,” Erickson said.
As they have at past candidate forums, Erickson and Freedman criticized Kelly for high turnover of deputy prosecuting attorneys, a third of whom Kelly said left because they were disgruntled or were fired.
“Turnover has largely stopped in its tracks,” Kelly said.
The case in which the prosecuting attorney’s office was fined concerned Mallicott, 46, of Port Angeles,and Lovera Margorie Blackcrow, 29, of the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation, were each charged with vehicular homicide in the death of Shelly Marie Bartlett, 45, of Sequim.
Bartlett was on the back of a motorcycle being driven by Mallicott when Mallicott and Blackcrow, driving a Ford Expedition, collided in the early morning hours of Aug. 16, 2009.
Blackcrow’s Superior Court trial is Aug. 9, and Mallicott’s is Oct. 4.
Ballots in the all-mail-ballot primary election will be mailed to voters Wednesday.
________
On Friday: Challengers criticize incumbent Clallam County District Court 1 Judge Rick Porter’s pay-or-appear program.
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
