BOTHELL — A Bothell man will get a new trial after the state Court of Appeals ruled that King County residents shouldn’t have been allowed on the jury, even if they did live in Bothell.
The jurors didn’t live in the right part of bifurcated Bothell, according to the ruling handed down Monday.
The state constitution gives defendants the right to be tried by a “jury of the county in which the offense is charged to have been committed.”
Bothell is one of a six cities in the state that straddles two counties. The city is primarily located in King County. In the early 1990s, the city annexed about six square-miles located in Snohomish County.
That doesn’t give Bothell the right to circumvent the state constitution, the judges concluded.
City officials anticipated the court’s decision and recently implemented changes to comply with the court ruling.
The city now has separate King County and Snohomish County jury pools and uses those according to where the alleged offense occurred, Bothell Municipal Court Judge Michelle Gehlsen said.
“That took a tremendous effort by court staff and citizens who stepped up on short notice to serve,” Gehlsen said.
The man was charged with stalking and tried in Bothell Municipal Court, which is in King County. The alleged offense, however, happened in Snohomish County.
During jury selection, the man’s attorney Mark Stephens, of Everett, argued that all the jurors should be from Snohomish County. The judge denied the request. The man was convicted by a jury that included residents from both counties.
Stephens contended that this violated his client’s constitutional rights.
“The language is really clear,” Stephens said. “At least it seemed clear to me.”
Municipal courts have been allowed to use jurors from outside the city limits but those jurors have resided in the same county.
City attorneys argued that the man received a fair trial. They also argued that those who drafted the constitution likely didn’t consider cities located in two counties.
Stephens appealed the conviction in King County Superior Court. A judge there upheld the man’s conviction. Stephens asked the state Court of Appeals to look at the case.
Stephens said one of the first questions the judges asked was, “Why hasn’t this come up before?”
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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