Prosecutors: New WA law prevents troubling out-of-court deals
The Associated Press

Local prosecutors are praising a new law that bans out-of-court deals for criminal defendants like ones that got a city prosecutor and contract defense attorney in trouble last year.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the legislation that bars payments by criminal defendants to charitable causes in hopes of having charges reduced or their cases dismissed. The law takes effect July 22.

"This is a very good thing," Franklin County Prosecutor Steve Lowe said.

Lowe and Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller testified on behalf of the bill at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2006.

"Andy and I got the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys to endorse and shepherd the bill through the process. It is common sense and the best practice," Lowe said. "Putting it into the statute will prevent future problems."

The measure signed into lay May 8 prohibits city, county or state prosecutors from dismissing, amending or agreeing not to file a criminal charge "in exchange for a contribution, donation or payment to any person, corporation, or organization."

It still allows donations or payments to specific state-authorized funds, or collection of costs associated criminal supervision, treatment, or restitution.

Several mid-Columbia jurisdictions changed their policies after the Tri-City Herald published a series of reports about donations from criminal defendants to Kennewick's Home Base youth program in 2005.

The stories resulted in federal bribery charges against former Kennewick Assistant City Attorney Tyler Morris and former contract public defender Jeffrey Finney.

Morris, 36, of Walla Walla, pleaded innocent in January to charges of conspiracy, theft and soliciting a bribe. Finney, 50, of Benton City, pleaded innocent to one count of bribery and one count of conspiracy to aid and abet in the theft of at least $20,000. Both are awaiting trial.

Finney and Morris were the targets of a yearlong FBI investigation into the alleged scheme to steal from the Home Base program. Defendants donated to the youth program in exchange for promises of reduced or dismissed charges.

The Herald discovered that in some cases, charges were dismissed or reduced for defendants, but their cash donations, which had been encouraged by Finney and Morris as a way to resolve the cases, didn't make it to the city's Home Base account.

Assuming the contributions actually go where they were spposed to, do you still have the same opposition, John?
I assume the best argument would be that community resources have been expended to arrest the defendant, file the case, and get it to court. If the prosecutor believes in the guilt of the accused, but the odds of conviction are very poor, wouldn't it be better to have the offender make some compensation to the community for his bad acts?

It just looks bad and smells bad regardless of how deserving the recipient is. Additionally, the payments are in the nature of a fine and prosecutors should not be picking the recipient of the funds paid.

What if the recipient is related to the crime? I've heard of donations to MADD in drink driving cases, donations to animal shelters in animal cruelty cases, etc. Is there a real distinction between requiring a monetary contribution and requiring community service hours to be done for a particular organization (which happens pretty frequently)?

In cases where the charge is being dismissed, I could see how that might look funny. "Pay the money and get you case dropped." But at the same time, as long as these arrangements are not concealed from the public, is there a real danger?

I have a problem with a prosecutor requiring a payment to some organization in exchange for a dismissal.

If the defendant is not guilty, he should not have to make a payment to any organization. If he is guilty, payments can be required in terms of fine, etc. as allowed by law.

The distinction in the situations you mentioned is that a judge had statutory authority to require the performance of community service hours. Additionally, the organizations have to qualify in order to be a recipient of community service hours.

"Not concealed" is not the same as "fully disclosed".

When the spending of money is being directed through government action (that of the prosecutor) but without statutory guidance, how and to whom do you demonstrate your good faith and impartiality? All of our statutorily-authorized expenditures come with audit trails, but not the "Dollars for Dismissals" deals. And on what basis to you make the defendant pay the SPCA and not the pit bull shelter, or vice versa?

I'm usually the last person to say that there ought to me a law, but I will make an exception in this case.

How about a donation to Crime Stoppers?

In general, the Code of Criminal Procedure and Penal Code authorize financial payments by defendants for lots of different circumstances. A judge may order a defendant to pay a fine, court costs, and restitution.

Then there is a growing list of payments that go beyond that list. But, at least there is specific legislative authority for the payments.

For example, there is a specific provision for payment of a fee to Crime Stoppers. There are certain other programs that receive authorized payments, including children's advocacy centers. But those payments are authorized upon placement of a defendant on deferred adjudication or after a conviction, not for a dismissal.

For all of these authorized payments, at least the legislature provides express authorization, set maximum amounts and described the conditions under which they could be imposed. None of those restrictions exists when a prosecutor and a defendant agree to dismiss a case for a "donation" to a particular organization.

As mentioned by posts above, such unrestricted and unsupervised agreements creates the opportunity for abuse. A prosecutor, for example, could steer donations to a particular local nonprofit. A rich defendant could have an advantage over a poor defendant.

This is a very sensitive topic, however, as there are offices throughout Texas that engage in dismissals or diversion programs that use such donations. There is plenty of room for different opinions on whether such donations should be permitted and how they should be handled. The point of posting this thread is to get prosecutors to talk about it and share how it is being handled.

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Originally posted by JB:
A rich defendant could have an advantage over a poor defendant.

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Oh, come on. Be serious. Rich defendants having an advantage over poor defendants? Now you're just being silly.