Reported in the Spokesman-Review this morning-
Former Spokane police Officer Karl Thompson Jr.’s legal battle to overturn his conviction in the 2006 death of Otto Zehm ended at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
The nation’s highest court declined to hear Thompson’s appeal, which argued that the Yakima jury that convicted him of civil rights violations heard evidence that legally should have been withheld. That evidence concerned the crime Thompson suspected Zehm of committing before the fatal encounter.
The decision ends a two-year appeals process for Thompson, who is scheduled to remain in a low-security facility in Safford, Arizona, until July 2016. He is serving a four-year sentence after the Yakima jury found him guilty in 2011 of using excessive force and attempting to conceal evidence in Zehm’s death.
This disturbing case has been a huge one in Spokane. It definitely awakened the community to the problems with the police department and it's relations with the community at large and the treatment of people with mental disabilities. All the things that are front and center nationwide with regard to the police.
Thompson initially was cleared of wrongdoing by Spokane County prosecutors in his confrontation with Zehm, which took place in a Zip Trip convenience store in north Spokane on March 18, 2006. Witnesses reported seeing Thompson strike the 36-year-old janitor multiple times with a baton, shoot him with a stun gun and hog-tie him after Thompson responded to a theft report that turned out to be false. Zehm died a few days later.
(my bolding)
Two young women reported seeing Mr. Zehm taking a ton of money, as they put it, from an ATM at a nearby bank. The officer (formerly an LAPD officer with a special long baton from his LA days) went to the convenience store where Mr. Zehm routinely went to buy a Snickers bar and a soda. With baton drawn as he left his car before entering the store, according to witness testimony, the officer confronted Mr. Zehm, who held up his soda bottle to defend himself from the officer's blows. There was no theft. And he just wanted to buy a Snickers bar.
And to add to that-
...unsealed federal court files show that the lead investigator within the police department, detective Terry Ferguson, knew that if the video of Zehm’s death became public, the results would be ‘inflammatory.’ Thompson also sent emails to police union officials requesting that they research deaths caused by a condition known as ‘excited delirium
The attorney for Mr. Thompson provided at taxpayer's, at this point unknown,expense says he thinks "the system failed".
Hardly, I think.
Mike Ormsby, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, credited the work of trial attorneys in putting together the case against Thompson.
...“This just underscores the significance of the commitment in the Spokane community to improve the police department, and that process has been underway for some time now,” Ormsby said of the decision.
Here is a link with the background on the case.
And the work continues.