Congratulations are due to fellow defense attorney Andy Robertson on a hard-fought case ending with a great result in Whatcom County Superior Court.
Here is the article from the Bellingham Herald explaining:
Jury deadlocks on whether man stole Bellingham police car
PETER JENSEN – THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
A Whatcom County Superior Court jury could not unanimously decide Thursday, Jan. 28, if a Bremerton man charged with stealing a Bellingham police patrol car in November 2008 was guilty of the crime.
Joshua R. Willette, 26, was charged with theft of a motor vehicle and first-degree malicious mischief.
After a four-day trial in Judge Ira Uhrig’s courtroom concluded Wednesday morning, the jury deliberated for the afternoon and into Thursday morning before deadlocking on the theft charge.
The jury found Willette not guilty of the malicious mischief charge.
Willette’s attorney, Andrea Robertson, said the 12-member jury was evenly split on whether he was guilty of the car-theft charge.
She said Senior Deputy Prosecutor Eric Richey has not made a decision on whether to re-try Willette on that charge.
“It’s hard to predict since it was split exactly down the middle,” Robertson said. “They expressed a lot of concerns about the investigation.”
Robertson said Willette was relieved but still anxious upon hearing the jury’s results.
“He cried when it was read,” Robertson said. “He had relief that part of it was over and anxiety about what happens next. It’s been a long, stressful process.”
Richey told the jury during trial that a shoeprint, a cigarette butt and DNA evidence tied Willette to the car theft.
Robertson countered that the shoeprint and cigarette butts were from common brands and called an expert witness to criticize the police department’s handling of the DNA evidence, which he said could lead to cross-contamination and a faulty test result.
Willette was drinking downtown at Bob’s Burgers & Brew on the night of Nov. 30, 2008, when Officer Matthew Allen parked his patrol car in the alley next to the Royal Inn and left the keys in the ignition. When he returned, the car was gone.
An officer later found the car damaged with a flat tire, two microphones stolen from it and on some rocks at the dead end of C Street near Bellingham Bay.
He found a cigarette butt that appeared recently smoked, and impounded that as evidence, according to trial testimony.
Another officer found Willette walking alone at C and Girard streets, and stopped to question him after Willette jumped into a bush as the patrol car passed.
Robertson said Willette walked into the bush because he was intoxicated.
When questioned, Willette had a pack of cigarettes on him that was the same brand as the butt found by the car, and the officer checked the soles of his shoes and later found a match in the mud about 30 feet from the stolen police car.
Robertson said the shoe is from a common brand and a similar shoeprint is now evidence against a defendant charged in a series of rooftop burglaries that was occurring when the police car was stolen.
After Willette was charged, the cigarette butt and a mouth swab containing his DNA were sent to a Washington State Patrol Crime Lab in Marysville for a comparison.
Although the lab found a match, Robertson called Donald Riley, a University of Washington professor and a DNA research scientist who observed the testing process, to cast doubts on the test result.
Riley said the swab and cigarette butt were placed in paper containers and put into a box for shipping to the lab, which he said could lead to cross-contamination because paper is porous enough to allow human cells to get through.
Richey countered that the evidence was placed in two layers of paper, and Riley admitted the DNA analyst did nothing to compromise the test results.