By Tracy Johnson And Hector Castro, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
It’s been an active year for crime and public safety, from a court ruling that gave hundreds of convicted murderers a chance for reprieve to the way police officers have been taming unruly suspects with Tasers.
Local police targeted domestic violence, stepping up their efforts to serve suspects with arrest warrants and take away their firearms.
Increased security concerns led to new four-legged inspectors at the local ferry docks, where authorities this fall started checking passengers’ vehicles with the help of bomb-sniffing dogs.
And arsonists kept busy, setting fires over the summer in Edmonds, Lake Forest Park and Seattle, where one torch job left a Phinney Ridge condominium project with about $3 million in damage.
The crime news of 2004 sparked public concern, focused on new law-enforcement tools and, at times, left people scratching their heads.
When else has a schoolteacher finished serving prison time for child rape, as Mary K. Letourneau did, then talked in an interview with Barbara Walters about her plans to live happily ever after with her victim?
But much of the controversy surrounding crime this year came from the high courts.
A state Supreme Court ruling paved the way for as many as about 300 convicted murderers to get new trials or strike plea deals that will allow some of them to go free.
It was the latest fallout from the high court’s “felony murder” decision in 2002, when a 5-4 majority found that murder charges don’t apply when someone commits a deadly assault unless the person actually meant to kill.
Justices ruled last month that everyone convicted of murder that way since 1976 is entitled to have their conviction thrown out.
Defense attorneys have lauded the court’s felony-murder decisions, saying manslaughter charges are more fitting when someone doesn’t intend to kill.
But some victims’ families were outraged, and prosecutors across the state are now left preparing to retry cases that are years or even decades old.
The U.S. Supreme Court toppled part of Washington’s sentencing system in June, nixing the way this state had been giving exceptionally long prison terms to criminals who are supposedly the worst.
Justices ruled that it should be up to a jury, not merely a judge, to decide whether there are reasons that someone deserves an especially long prison term.
Now the state Supreme Court must decide whether the many people who got such harsher-than-usual punishments during the past two decades should get a sentencing do-over.
The way people are sentenced in federal courts across the country may soon prove to be doomed as well.
As for catching the bad guys, Tasers were at the center of debate this year. The high-voltage tools have been touted as a way for police across the country to stop suspects without deadly gunfire.
Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske this year agreed to be a Taser target to show his faith in their safety.
But Tasers still drew their share of complaints. Seattle paid $25,000 to settle the claim of one teen who was pulled over by police and shocked four times in the neck, then never charged with a crime.
A Seattle Post-Intelligencer review of hundreds of police reports found that officers use them in a variety of situations, from traffic stops to panhandling complaints.
Also this year, police looked for new ways to combat the chronic problem of domestic violence and keep it from turning deadly.
For the King County prosecutor’s and sheriff’s offices, that meant stepping up efforts to make sure that people accused of domestic-violence crimes were forced to surrender their guns.
So far, more than 200 firearms have been handed over.
In Seattle, police marked Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October by joining a multistate effort to nab domestic-violence suspects.
On a single day, teams of officers set out to serve 120 arrest warrants.
Though the effort locked up just 11 suspects, police officials said the idea was to send a message to offenders.
A few active arsonists caught the attention of local police this year as well. Edmonds police arrested a man suspected of torching two abandoned homes in August, and Seattle police nabbed three teens suspected of setting a string of fires in the Ballard area.
But the most serious spree - 15 fires in North Seattle between July 25 and Aug. 5, including pricey destruction on Phinney Ridge - hasn’t been solved.