NEAH BAY — Five men who killed a gray whale on Sept. 8 received deferred prosecution Wednesday from the Makah Tribal Court.
All five must abide for a year by conditions that will be set June 30 in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, where they either have pleaded guilty or have been found guilty of federal misdemeanors.
If they do so, tribal charges that include animal cruelty and discharging a firearm will be dropped, said Wayne Johnson, one of the five defendants.
The attempt to try the men by jury collapsed when only 13 of 200 potential jurors had not been dismissed for bias or kinship with one of the defendants — and attorneys had yet to exercise any challenges, Johnson said.
Chief Tribal Judge Stanley Myers, who initially had resisted any outcome short of a trial, granted the deferral and charged each man $20 in court costs.
“It could have been better, but it could have been worse,” Johnson said.
Johnson and the others — Andy Noel, Frankie Gonzales, Theron Parker and William Secor Sr. — killed the whale in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Neah Bay.
The whale, harpooned four times and shot at least 16 times, died more than nine hours later before the Coast Guard received permission to euthanize it.
It sank and did not resurface.
