(The Center Square) – A Washington bill creating a statewide independent prosecutor within the Attorney General’s Office has cleared the Senate Law & Justice Committee despite warnings from opponents who say it would undermine the local democratic process.
In Washington, all 39 counties have their prosecutors elected by local voters, who have jurisdiction over felony cases, including those involving deadly use of force by law enforcement officers. House Bill 1589 would amend that policy by allowing a statewide independent prosecutor to review and potentially file charges related to deadly incidents involving a police officer, even if the county prosecutor chooses not to do so. The bill would appropriate several million dollars annually for the AGO to hire additional staff for the office.
Supporters have argued that the bill is necessary because local prosecutors are too closely connected to police agencies they normally work with, a claim detractors say has no merit.
“It’s inappropriate to usurp and project some wild insecurity onto someone who has won the confidence of the local voters,” Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, told colleagues at Law and Justice Committee’s Tuesday meeting. Padden unsuccessfully sought to amend the bill by stripping a requirement that county prosecutors forward deadly use of force cases to the independent prosecutor if they chose not to pursue criminal charges. Another amendment he proposed would have removed a conflict of interest provision in which prosecutors must meet certain criteria to avoid having to recuse themselves from the case.
According to the AGO’s fiscal note for the bill, “that will be difficult for the County Prosecutor to overcome in order to retain authority over the case.”
“I think our locals are better than the bill gives them credit for,” Padden said, adding that the bill constituted an “an abuse of the power of the citizens of our state when they elect their local prosecutors.”
The amendments were opposed by Chair Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, who is also running for attorney general. Regarding the required referrals to the independent prosecutor, she said that provision “makes sense.”
Aside from the practical effects of the bill, other critics like police data expert and former King County prosecutor Bob Scales say the data originally used to justify the legislation is flawed. According to previous AGO’s fiscal note for the bill, there are 250 deadly use of force incidents every year, and 28 of those result in a death.
However, Scales argued in a Feb. 17 that “there is absolutely no factual basis for this claim.” As The Center Square has previously reported late last year, internal email communication within the Office of Independent Investigation revealed that the 250 figure was used as a “worst case scenario,” while the AGO argued Scales’ accusation of a flawed statistic was based on a separate definition of such incidents.
Scales also wrote in his email that “there is obviously nothing wrong with the AGO proposing these bills,” but claimed they are “providing the legislature with false and misleading information about why this legislation is needed and what the impacts of this legislation would be. This Attorney General has a track record of malicious prosecutions of police officers where charges are brought by the AGO but the officers are quickly acquitted due to a lack of evidence. So it may be that the AGO wants all these additional resources to maliciously prosecute dozens of officers each year. Once the legislature gives the AGO the money and the authority to prosecute police officers, no one can stop the AGO from engaging in malicious prosecutions.”
HB 1589 has not yet been referred to another committee.
