well, that's settled. good for bill.

cool response. like Ron Sims response, both are pro-justice.

Good for you Bill Sherman

I do like the clear-headed response, but he works in Domestic Violence, right? I'm curious about the cases where he's filed charges dealing with attacks on officers. Nothing coming close to the Critical Mass scenario, I imagine.

Coming next week.....a delay of the decision to press charges. Check back in two weeks for the answer.

Honestly, will someone decent PLEASE run against Norm Maleng?!?!

His answer makes sense. If the KC prosecutor were to actually file criminal charges, the defendants (the bicycle riders) would merely have to raise "reasonable doubt" in the KC deputies story as a defense. Given all the eye witnesses, including many who were not remotely involved in Critical Mass, who flatly dispute the deputies' story, the prosecutor would have a hell of a time trying to prove their case. From a purely pragmatic standpoint if nothing else, the KC prosecutor is going to have to let this one go. There is no way they'd get a jury to convict.

Doug--I have a friend who works at the prosecutor's office. Most of them rotate offices every year for the first several years of their career, before they have a lonter term assignment. I wouldn't let his current domestic violence role make you doubt his response.

Hey, didn't Dick Kelley also answer the Stranger's questions in the same thread?

So, sounds like the Stranger's playing favorites ...

Bill answered a question that pertains to an ongoing story in the Stranger's newsroom - that's why it got frontpaged.

To Doug: Actually, while Sherman spent a lot of time in the DV unit, when he took a leave from the prosecutor's office to run he was in felony filing. That means he likely would have been the person directly involved in the decision to file charges, so I think his opinion could be considered fairly expert in this case.

And to Good Grief: as a liberal dem who has been a card-carrying member of the ACLU for my entire adult life, I can tell you that we could do a whole lot worse than Norm Maleng. It is largely thanks to him that we have one of the more progressive criminal justice systems in the country with alternative programs like the special drug and mental health courts.

And in case you were asleep during the lesson in civics class, Norm does not run SPD, KCSD or any other law enforcement agency. The cops get to decide who to arrest, not the prosecutors.

I'm with marriedtothelaw. I'm not sure what Good Grief's bief is w/Norm, but I think he's pretty progressive. You have to keep in mind that his job is to enforce the law. But King County does a good job filtering stuff. A lot of places would have filed charges immediately and asked questions later.

Thanks for the info on Sherman's background in the Prosecutor's office. He lists only DV on his website. I wonder if this was a "political" choice for the leftie 43rd?

It's no more a political choice than another candidate, Jamie Pedersen, removing references to his work as outside counsel for the Seattle Monorail Project from his bio on the Preston Gates web site after he decided to run for office.

Um, maybe the reason people want Maleng gone is because he showed his party hack colors by refusing to press charges against GOP operative Lori Sotelo when she tried to disenfranchise thousands of King County voters by filing erroneous (and ultimately, for the most part, tossed out) voter challenges.

Willis notes:

he showed his party hack colors by refusing to press charges against GOP operative Lori Sotelo when she tried to disenfranchise thousands of King County voters by filing erroneous (and ultimately, for the most part, tossed out) voter challenges.

To amplify, that would be

refusing to press perjury charges against GOP operative Lori Sotelo when she tried to disenfranchise thousands of King County voters by knowingly filing and signing false legal attestations to erroneous (and ultimately, for the most part, tossed out) voter challenges.

To my knowledge, no one has filed against Maleng.

Maybe we can get Josh to file against Maleng?

The real question is whether Sherman would file charges against the thugs that assaulted a bicyclist in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. Their occupation is immaterial.

Who knows why he didn't file against Sotelo. it could have been partisan reasons, but i think there were probably other reasons. No doubt that norm maleng himself didn't doe the bulk of the investigation on that, but got recommendations from staff. if there was a really strong case against her, don't you think he'd be risking a lot to just ignore that evidence? there are enough dems in that office that someone would have raised a stink.

i think area dems have higher priorities than ousting norm maleng.

all the same, i think it's interesting that nobody significant ever files against him. of course, the people most qualified to run against him are the people who work for him.

I just guessing, but I think the reason that Maleng didn't file charges against Sotelo was that there was almost no chance of successful prosecution. Believe it or not, it costs a hell of a lot of resources to pursue a perjury charge, especially when up against the full force of the Republican party machine.

FWIW, Norm took a boat-load of crap from the KC Republicans at a WAC event during the election trial for not filing charges against the hundreds of purported illegal felon voters in KC as well.

And I think Josh has a much better gig writing for the Stranger. While marijuana possession is a fairly low-priority crime now, I'd wager that the Stranger workplace is slightly more herb-friendly than the courthouse...