A Court's Disorder
Miss Springman
Elected by Eastside voters, East (Redmond) District Court Judge Peter Nault starts his new assignment today - on the West (Seattle) District Court bench. He's convinced his transfer is punishment for his rulings - some of them based on his belief that the instructions given to drunk drivers prior to taking a breath test are faulty, and tossing the results before trial. Among the notable recipients of such a ruling was King County Council member Jane Hague, A.K.A. Miss Jane Springman.
Nault told the Seattle Times that a barrage of affidavits filed by the office of King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg questioned his ability to fairly judge any criminal case, adding:
It becomes quite obvious that what they're [the prosecutor's office] doing is judge-shopping...Of course I don't like it.
But then, Nault has been the judge to shop in Redmond for at least several years when any DUI attorney was looking for someone to toss a client's DataMaster results. It was probably the Hague-Springman case that brought this to a head, after Nault seemed to infer to a prosecutor he hadn't done what he actually did.
As SW reported last year, prosecutors weren't aware that Nault had thrown out Hague-Springman's .14 breath-alcohol reading. After Nault signed such an order at an attorney's request, an audio recording catches a prosecutor saying: "Your honor, stupid question," but didn't the order have broader implications - like, ruling out the breath evidence? But, answers Nault, "Don't worry, no one's gonna play that game with us." The council member's attorneys shortly thereafter said the results were in fact thrown out. The prosecutor raised the issue anew in court, and Nault tossed them again. Hague-Springman was soberly delighted. The public official who cussed out her own county cops pled down to a reckless driving rap.
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