A judge struggled to hide her emotions on Friday as she sentenced a former Snohomish County deputy prosecutor to 31 1/2 years in prison for gunning down rival Bellevue attorney Kevin Jung, leaving him near death in a vegetative state.
In sentencing William R. Joice, 52, of Mill Creek, King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector shuddered as she recounted the months Joice spent devising “a chilling and ruthless plan” to murder Jung to delay a civil case that pitted the attorneys against each other.
Despite Joice’s continued claim that he never intended to kill Jung, Spector said his crime rises to the level of premeditated murder, because the bullet Joice fired into Jung’s head left him with little that resembles life.
“Kevin Jung is a prisoner in a world that is neither with the living nor with the deceased,” Spector said. “It was a premeditated murder that failed to accomplish its final goal -death.”
Jung’s condition has steadily declined since the Nov. 3, 2004, shooting. Prosecutors said he is now in hospice care and is not expected to live much longer.
In December, it took jurors just 30 minutes to convict Joice of attempted first-degree murder. Joice had testified in his own defense that inexperience caused him to fall behind in an important case, then drink. Depression led him to plot to shoot his opposing counsel and delay the trial.
Jung was described as a respected attorney, a strong advocate for the region’s Korean community and a devoted and loving father of two boys, ages 10 and 13.
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