Jury weighs Everett officer’s shooting case

Published 11:09 pm Saturday, April 24, 2010

EVERETT — In the end, the lawyers agreed, it was a case where there was no room for fear or compromise.

Jurors on Friday began considering the fate of Everett police officer Troy Meade. They listened to two weeks of testimony and most of a day of impassioned closing arguments.

Attorneys on both sides of the murder case urged jurors to pull justice from the midst of a tragedy.

Meade’s lawyer, David Allen of Seattle, told them they must put themselves in Meade’s shoes, and not “horse trade” over what to do about a cop who is now being second-guessed for a line-of-duty shooting.

“It’s a tragedy for Troy. It’s a nightmare,” Allen said. “The jury has the chance to make the nightmare go away,”

Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Matthew Baldock told jurors they can’t let fear keep them from holding a police officer to a high standard. For the justice system to have integrity, jurors have no choice but to be diligent.

“You have to hold the defendant accountable for the choices he made,” Baldock said.

Meade is charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting Niles Meservey June 10 outside the Chuckwagon Inn on Evergreen Way.

The death was investigated by the Snohomish Multi-Agency Response Team, a group of detectives assembled from departments around the county, each hand-picked because of their experience in homicide and major-crime cases.

Everett police and other local departments in 1998 agreed the group was needed to conduct impartial investigations of line-of-duty police incidents that end in death or serious injury. Meade opted not to be questioned by investigators.

Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe in October decided Meade should face charges after reviewing the results of the SMART investigation. Roe has reviewed all of the group’s cases over the years. Meade is the first local police officer ever to face criminal charges for a line-of-duty killing, something that is so rare that national statistics aren’t kept on similar cases.

Meade initially was charged with first-degree manslaughter. Days before his trial began, however, prosecutors added a more-serious second-degree murder charge.

Meade’s attorney argued that the more severe charge was unfair. Prosecutors told the judge it was policy, not personal. The manslaughter charge was one they would have found acceptable if Meade had admitted guilt under a plea agreement. When he opted for trial, they moved to prove the most serious charge they believed supported by the evidence, which is their usual practice for defendants in serious criminal cases.

The trial began April 14 and played out in a downtown Everett courtroom, where spectators often filled every seat and sometimes crowded along the walls. Among those watching were many off-duty Everett officers.

There were moments of gripping testimony.

A resolute Meade on Thursday told jurors he was protecting himself and others when he opened fire. He insisted that if he hadn’t shot, he would have been run down by Meservey’s Chevrolet Corvette and injured or killed.

Everett police officer Steven Klocker, an eyewitness to the shooting, had earlier told jurors he saw no reason for Meade to open fire.

Klocker, a 30-year law enforcement veteran (a decade with Everett and 20 years in military police), testified across two days. At times he blinked back tears as he recounted the night of the shooting.

Meade swore at the drunken Meservey and said something like “time to end this, enough is enough” before pulling the trigger, Klocker testified. Meade denied making that statement and later questioned Klocker’s police skills.

So did Allen. He repeatedly suggested that Klocker had “retreated” from a potentially dangerous situation and failed to help Meade. Klocker said that simply wasn’t true.

Detectives measured the paths of bullets Meade fired, and used computer programs to pinpoint where Meade was standing when he fired at Meservey’s Corvette. They concluded Meade was about a yard behind and a yard to the side of the car, and unlikely to be struck if it had backed up.

There was conflicting testimony about whether Meservey had put the car in reverse before he was killed.

Meade said he fired when Meservey’s car shot back toward him. He said the backup lights flashed on. He also said he was standing alongside the car and at risk of being pressed between the Corvette and another vehicle.

When he questioned Meade, deputy prosecutor John Adcock wondered how the officer could be at the Corvette’s side and also in position to see the backup lights.

Meade said he was able to do so.

Jurors also heard about another shooting involving Meade. The officer fired his handgun at a suspect in 2006 after the man ran down another police officer with a car. Dr. David Klinger, a senior research scientist at The Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., told the court that an officer’s perceptions in risky situations can be distorted by past and present exposure to danger. That testimony was important, because Meade’s perceptions of danger must be considered by jurors.

Some of what the jurors saw clearly troubled them. One fainted when prosecutors showed pictures of Meservey’s gunshot wounds.

There also was drama without jurors present. In the middle of the trial, a civil attorney hired to represent the city of Everett in a $15 million lawsuit brought by Meservey’s family sent defense and prosecution lawyers hundreds of pages of documents. Some of the records suggested Klocker’s testimony in other trials had led a municipal court judge to doubt his truthfulness.

The documents were sent days after prosecutors had called Klocker to testify, and just as the defense was preparing to present its case.

Allen on Friday told Superior Court Judge Gerald Knight he decided against raising those questions others had about Klocker. Baldock told the judge he had investigated the statements and the city’s prosecutors told him there was misunderstanding and confusion about what the city judge had said regarding Klocker’s credibility.

Jurors are scheduled to resume deliberations Monday.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.