MONROE — A dispute between two inmates waiting in line for medicine could land a man in prison for life.
Prosecutors have charged a 41-year-old man with second-degree assault for the 2014 incident at the Monroe Correctional Complex. The man has been convicted of assault twice before. A third conviction would mean a mandatory life sentence under the state’s persistent offender law.
Prosecutors allege that Joshua Kellerman punched another inmate in the face and caused him to lose consciousness. Kellerman reportedly told a corrections officer that he started the fight and “claimed that this was prison and the assault was to gain respect,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Edirin Okoloko wrote in court papers.
An inmate was standing in line waiting to receive his medication at the Twin Rivers unit when Kellerman allegedly tried to cut in front of him. The other inmate attempted to block Kellerman and told him to go wait in line like everyone else, Okoloko wrote.
Kellerman allegedly punched the man in the face. The impact caused the other inmate to fall backward, and he struck his head against a wall. He tried to get to his feet but slumped back to the ground and lost consciousness, court papers said.
Nurses at the medicine counter came to the injured man’s aid. He was unresponsive and later taken to Valley General Hospital in Monroe. He was diagnosed with multiple facial fractures. He also suffered a concussion.
The assault was captured on the prison’s surveillance system, Okoloko wrote.
Kellerman is serving time for repeatedly violating a no-contact order issued by a Whatcom County judge. He was convicted of second-degree assault in 2005 and again in 2010. He has since been moved to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
A Snohomish County judge last week ordered Kellerman to be moved from the prison to the county jail in Everett so he can answer to the new charge.
Washington voters in 1993 approved the Persistent Offender Accountability Act. Under the law, dozens of violent felony crimes are labeled “most serious offenses” and categorized as “strikes.” If a person racks up three strikes, the law mandates a sentence of life in prison without possibility of release.
Snohomish County, like many jurisdictions, has pursued fewer third strikes than when the law was first enacted. That’s in large part because the cases are heavily litigated, often as much as an aggravated murder case — the only other charge that can carry a mandatory life sentence.
It took two years for prosecutors to bring another Monroe inmate to trial for a third-strike assault on a corrections officer.
Jimi Hamilton’s lawyers failed to persuade a jury in 2014 that the inmate was in a “dissociative state” when he pummeled the officer in 2012. Hamilton is appealing his conviction and life sentence.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
