Third strike assault on corrections officer sends felon to prison for life

EVERETT — Seven years ago as she sent Jimi James Hamilton away for a pair of bank robberies a Pierce County judge predicted that the convict would end up living out his days behind bars.

Hamilton on Thursday was sentenced to life in prison. The day before, a Snohomish County jury found him guilty of assaulting a Monroe corrections officer while serving time for those bank robberies. It was Hamilton’s third strike in a long rap sheet.

He earned his first felony conviction at age 12. By the time he was 16, Hamilton, now 35, was being sent to adult prison for assaults on corrections officers.

Thursday marked the end of two years of legal tussling that included allegations the state Department of Corrections illegally snooped on Hamilton’s correspondence with his attorneys. His lawyers, two public defenders, continued to fight Thursday, arguing that the judge didn’t have the authority to hand down a life sentence without additional findings by a jury.

The judge didn’t agree. She swiftly ordered Hamilton to serve life in prison without the possibility of release under the state’s persistent offender law.

“I don’t believe I have any other option,” Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Marybeth Dingledy said.

Defense attorney Jennifer Rancourt said she’s hopeful Hamilton’s case is a wake up call. The defense had argued that Hamilton was a victim of untreated mental illnesses and suffered lasting effects from being frequently held in solitary confinement. Society needs to improve how people with mental illness are treated, Rancourt said.

During the two week trial the defense had argued that Hamilton couldn’t form the intent to assault corrections officer Nicholas Trout in 2012 because he was in a “dissociative state.” He believed he was defending himself against an inmate who had once warned him never to be a snitch in prison. He was panicked that he was going to be attacked because he recently had reported that another inmate and a female corrections officer were having a sexual relationship, jurors were told.

Prosecutors alleged that Hamilton was mad that Trout wouldn’t let him visit another area in the unit. He raced toward the corrections officer, knocked him to the ground and wailed on him with both hands. A video captured the assault.

Hamilton has played the victim and blamed everyone else — his attorneys, the department of corrections, and the court — for putting him in this position, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Cindy Larsen said Thursday.

“He has earned every minute of a life sentence on his own,” she said.

Hamilton laughed at the remark. Surprisingly, he didn’t have anything to say when the judge asked him if he wanted to speak.

“Nah. I’m all right,” he said.

The day before, Hamilton flung insults at his lawyers, corrections officers and Monroe police detective Barry Hatch.

After the jury’s verdict was read by the court clerk Hamilton kept on talking.

“Thanks for sending me to prison for the rest of my life with the three strikes law,” he said.

Jurors weren’t told during the trial that Hamilton faced a mandatory life sentence.

As lawyers planned when to schedule the sentencing hearing Hamilton had his own suggestion.

“Let’s get the show on the road. What about now?”

Hamilton is expected to appeal. He predicted out loud Thursday that his conviction wouldn’t stand.

“Don’t be sorry,” he told Rancourt. “It ain’t over.”

Hamilton is expected to be moved quickly back to prison.