LYNNWOOD — Any time Lynnwood police detective Jacqueline Arnett is listed as a potential witness in a criminal case, defense attorneys will be notified of how her mismanagement of evidence led a judge to dismiss a charge against a former mental health worker accused of sexually abusing a teenage client.
Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe wrote the department earlier this month about his decision to include Arnett in his office’s “potential impeachment disclosure” files. Roe arrived at his decision after reviewing Lynnwood’s internal investigation into Arnett, according to the letter he sent Chief Tom Davis.
“The office of the prosecuting attorney is making no representations about whether Detective Arnett was or was not truthful in her explanation for how certain oversights occurred,” Roe wrote.
The office will, however, apprise defense attorneys of Superior Court Judge Linda Krese’s findings and conclusions, he added.
Krese late last year called into question Arnett’s credibility when it was discovered that the detective failed to turn over evidence, including interviews with the teenager, despite being asked more than once if she had provided everything to prosecutors. Those materials, Krese concluded, could have been used to impeach the boy’s testimony.
There was no physical evidence in the case against Lyndon Boyd, a former Compass Health employee. Prosecutors alleged that Boyd fondled a 13-year-old client during a home visit in 2016. Boyd denied abusing his client.
The prosecution rested on the credibility of the boy and other witnesses.
A jury last year couldn’t reach a verdict after about a week of testimony that included the teen, Arnett and Boyd.
The defense was preparing for a second trial when they discovered an undisclosed interview with the boy. The teen’s statements during that interview were inconsistent with others he’d made a couple of weeks earlier. It was also discovered that Arnett had failed to turn over another interview.
At the defense’s request, Krese dismissed the charge against Boyd, citing governmental misconduct.
Arnett was called to testify in front of the judge to explain her actions.
The detective blamed her missteps in part on ongoing problems with New World Systems, the county’s beleaguered emergency dispatch and records-keeping system. Police and firefighters have complained about the multimillion-dollar system that has resulted in delayed responses to 911 calls and technical glitches.
Arnett said that she kept a backup of all her work because of those problems. She said she didn’t check her backup system because she had no reason to believe everything wasn’t in New World Systems.
“One can see why Judge Krese was frustrated with this response because on one hand Arnett is saying she doesn’t trust NWS so has redundant backup systems in place so her work is not lost yet she responds that she didn’t verify her work in these backup systems because she thought she had it all submitted in NWS,” Lynnwood Deputy Chief Bryan Stanifer wrote in a memo to Davis.
In her ruling, Krese wrote that Arnett’s failure to turn over materials “represents, at least, gross negligence on her part in failing to comply with her duty to provide complete discovery. The court is not persuaded that she acted in good faith in providing discovery in this matter.”
Krese, in her oral ruling, said there was reason to believe Arnett engaged in “deliberate obfuscation.”
Roe said he plans to include the judge’s order and a copy of her oral ruling to defense attorneys. He added that, “We have no general concerns about the honesty of the detective, who provided plausible explanation for her actions and statements that Judge Krese did not find persuasive.”
The police department in its internal investigation also did not find that Arnett was “deliberately untruthful nor trying to be dishonest in any way,” Stanifer wrote in the memo to the chief.
The Daily Herald obtained the memo under the state’s public records law.
Arnett was suspended for three days without pay for sustained findings of what amounted to sloppy work, including improper record-keeping, being unprepared for court and unsatisfactory performance.
She continues to work as a detective, investigating crimes against persons, including sexual assaults and homicides. Arnett also is a part of the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team, a group of detectives from around the county assigned to investigate officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths.
Arnett has been with Lynnwood since 2007. She’s been assigned to investigations since 2011.
Lynnwood police Sgt. Scott Dilworth concluded in the internal investigation that New World Systems did not contribute to record-keeping problems in the Boyd case. Statements weren’t entered into evidence and audio recordings weren’t uploaded to the system until well after the first trial.
Arnett told internal investigators she didn’t recall the missed interviews, citing her workload. She handles numerous sexual assault cases so the details all run together, she said.
“Arnett is, in my opinion, a particularly intelligent and a diligent worker. However during questioning in the (internal investigation) interview she reports being unable to keep the details separate anymore,” Dilworth wrote.
Lynnwood police had sent a referral to Roe in February, along with the results of its internal investigation.
In his memo to Davis, Roe explained his standard for including officers in the potential impeachment disclosure file is based on case law. That criteria boils down to “whether a reasonable person could conclude an officer had not been credible during some phase of his or her official duties,” Roe wrote. “Judge Krese so found.”
In 2014, Roe’s office released to The Daily Herald the names of 43 officers included in the file, most of whom no longer work in law enforcement.
The officers often are referred to “Brady cops.” That’s in reference to the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brady v. State of Maryland, ruling that defendants must be told about potentially exculpatory evidence in criminal cases, including questions about police witness credibility.
The case management database at the prosecutor’s office is programmed to automatically flag the officers whenever they surface as witnesses in a case.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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