Franklin prosecutors fined for not filing murder trial paperwork
Murder suspect Pedro Bucio, left, makes a preliminary appearance by video in Franklin County Superior Court in April 2020. He is charged in the death of a 19-year-old Eltopia man.
Tri-City Herald
Pasco, WA
Franklin County prosecutors were ordered to pay $5,000 after failing to file routine paperwork in a murder case.
Last week’s decision was the second time in a year Judge Diana Ruff sanctioned the prosecutor’s office for violating Washington court rules by failing to hand over a list of the witnesses they intend to have testify at a trial. It was the office’s third fine in three years.
Defense attorneys Shelley Ajax and Charlie Dow argued that Ruff should dismiss the murder charge against Pedro Bucio because of the violation. But Ruff stopped short of that.
Bucio is charged with shooting a friend in the head three times in 2020 and hiding his body in his bedroom covered with a tarp.
While the Eltopia man has been waiting for a trial for more than three years, Ajax has only been on the case for part of that time. She told Ruff that she tried to work with prosecutors to resolve the case through a plea agreement.
When that didn’t work out, she and Dow began preparing for a trial. While they have all of the police reports and other information from the prosecutor’s office, they didn’t have a list of the potential witnesses prosecutors planned to call to the stand.
Dow counted more than 50 potential witnesses. They found themselves preparing for every possible combination of witnesses, knowing that many might never be called.
“We are again painted into a corner because of a lack of effort,” Dow told Ruff as he argued for the charges to be dropped. “What we’re saying is that despite the state’s worst efforts, we’ve been able to prepare for a trial.”
When Ruff asked Deputy Prosecutor Dave Corkrum why no witness list had been filed, he said he didn’t have a good answer. However, he noted that the office has been handling a large number of cases.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to devote my time to this case,” he said. “This court is well aware that we’re not going to bring a witness that isn’t included in discovery (documents).”
Prosecutor Shawn Sant asked Ruff to give them more time to respond to the motion to dismiss the murder charges but Ruff decided against dropping the charges and issued the fine.
Previous fines
This is the third time in as many years that Franklin County prosecutors have been fined for court required paperwork problems.
Ajax has been part of all three of the cases, and Dow has been there for two of them.
The first happened in late 2020 after Judge Bruce Spanner ruled that prosecutors needed to trim a witness list from more than 220 to a more reasonable number in a case of illegal drug and gun possession.
Spanner ruled it needed to be turned in by Dec. 29, 2020. At the time, he didn’t issue a fine.
After Ajax didn’t receive the new witness list by the deadline, the attorney challenged the prosecutors. However, prosecutors said they sent it on the day it was due.
Judge Jackie Shea Brown decided to fine the prosecutor’s office $2,250. The prosecutor’s office appealed the decision and lost.
The second time was in the case of Joe Cruz Garza, who had been arrested for violating a no contact order with Breanna Gooldy. While he was later accused with leaving her outside in bitter cold weather to die, no charges connected to that were brought for months. They were later quickly dismissed.
But while he was charged with violating a no contact order, prosecutors didn’t turn over their information about the case or a list of witnesses.
Dow also asked for the charges to be dismissed, but Ruff declined to do that and instead she released Garza from jail and fined the prosecutor’s office $1,000.
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Cameron Probert covers breaking news and education for the Tri-City Herald, where he tries to answer readers’ questions about why police officers and firefighters are in your neighborhood. He studied communications at Washington State University.
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