The inquest hearing into the death of Damarius Butts, the 19-year-old killed by four SPD cops in 2017, has been indefinitely delayed after a last-minute change to the inquest’s rules. The Butts inquest had been set to begin this morning.
Inquest hearings are fact-finding proceedings called in King County every time a cop kills someone. King County Executive Dow Constantine put these quasi-judicial hearings on hold two years ago after advocates complained the hearings were slanted in favor of cops. Constantine then released his new update to inquest rules in October of 2018.
In that version of the rules, officers who kill someone were able to have their hired attorneys at the inquest hearing regardless of wether or not the officers themselves testified. Now that’s changed—Constantine quietly released an update to his new rules last week, with the updated rules requiring cops to either testify at the inquest hearing or be barred from having any legal representation in the process.
On Friday, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and the attorneys representing the police officers who killed Butts requested that the inquest be delayed while they consider the change of rules. King County Judge Michael Spearmen, the judge overseeing the Butts inquest, granted the delay and scheduled a new pre-inquest hearing for Dec. 16.
Spearmen acknowledged that the officers or the city may sue to block Constantine’s last-minute rule change. The judge gave the parties until Dec. 13 to tell the court if they plan on suing.
Constantine’s office declined to comment on Friday regarding the timing or reasoning behind the rule change.
But the county exec’s last-minute move won praise from police reform advocates. Corey Guilmette, an attorney at the Public Defender Association and one of the stakeholders who helped Constantine draft the new inquest rules, said he supports the recent decision.
“I appreciate the recent clarification issued by Executive Constantine,” Guilmette said in a text message. “If officers wish to participate in an inquest and have their attorneys present, they must also be required to participate by offering testimony if called as witnesses.”
Ted Buck, an attorney for the officers who killed Damarius Butts, said the rule change potentially violates the constitutional rights of involved officers. He also questioned the timing of the executive’s rule change.
“While the executive’s decision was not explained, its timing frankly suggests a distain (sic) not just for involved officers, but also for the extensive, good faith effort undertaken by all involved in this process, not to mention raising the specter of due process and equal protection issues,” Buck said in a legal filing.
City Attorney Pete Holmes, who represents SPD, also filed a request for a delay after Constantine’s change to the rules, calling Constantine’s actions “a last-minute effort…to obstruct months of thoughtful hard work by the involved parties…
“The parties’ search for balance and fairness in these proceedings,” Holmes continued in his legal filing, “has been overshadowed by the executive’s sudden change.”
Attorneys for the Butts family declined to comment on the rule change.
Buck, the attorney for the officers, told The Stranger on Friday that he did not yet know how the cops he represents will decide to proceed.
“At this juncture we haven’t had a chance to sit down with the officers to go over this bombshell that was dropped on us by the executive,” Buck said.
He added that the law enforcement community is worried about their testimony at inquest hearings being used against them in later criminal charges, a worry that has been heightened since the passage of Initiative 940 in 2018. That ballot initiative lowered the legal bar required to convict cops of murder. Washington previously had one of the country’s toughest legal requirements for convicting cops, a standard that had resulted in essentially no charges against killer cops.
With a new standard on the books, officers are now worried how prosecuting attorneys will interpret the statute, according to Buck.
“If [officers] voluntarily testify,” Buck said, “they are waiving their Fifth Amendment right to not testify against themselves, in the shadow of that new statute.”
Buck said the officers would also be at a severe disadvantage if they chose not to testify and, as a result of Constantine’s new rule, were prohibited from having their attorney present at the hearings.
