Tagged: crime

King County prosecutors have spent nearly $700,000 on two active death penalty cases, but the defense cost is even higher — $4.3 million and climbing.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg told The Seattle Times death penalty opponents are trying to hold off executions by running up the bills for investigators, forensics and expert witnesses.

This past spring we brought you the story of an Eastern Washington dairy town plagued by gang violence. Now, several months later residents of Outlook, Washington are fighting gangs with summer camps and social gatherings.

This spring a 17-year-old girl was shot at her home in Outlook, Wash. allegedly by four gang members. But just recently, blocks away from that murder site, children played bean bag toss and took whacks at a piñata.

Sounds great, but don't hold your breath: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Forecast here.

Making headlines around the Northwest:

• Attending UW will cost you 20 percent more
• Washington parks are no longer free to visit
• Off the wire: Crane topples; former police chief sues
• Car-repair scam ends in theft of wallet, arrest
• Famed Olympia Brewery site future shaping up

One of the three teens convicted of killing a popular Seattle street musician in 2008 continues to make headlines for his tangles with the law. Billy Chambers – who's now an adult – was most recently locked up for hit-and-run. It turns out he did not qualify for supervision by a juvenile parole officer because of state budget cuts.

The Washington Department of Corrections says one inmate was killed Wednesday during an escape attempt at the Clallam Bay Corrections Facility.

Spokesman Chad Lewis says that just after 10 a.m., a corrections officer was taken hostage by a prisoner with a pair of scissors. At the same time, another prisoner drove a forklift through the doors of the work area and into the prison fence.

One of Seattle’s seediest buildings is going up for auction on Wednesday. Rick’s Nightclub on Lake City Way was seized by federal agents more than a year ago.

Time for some fun in the sun: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Forecast here.

Making headlines around the Northwest:

• Class-action suit claims public defenders swamped
• Off the wire: Train derailment; women attacked
• Unusual dolphin sighting in south Puget Sound
• Olympic National Park rangers kill aggressive elk

If you’ve witnessed a crime, you’ll swear you can accurately identify the person who did it. But, there’s a good chance you’re wrong, especially if that person is of a different race. Still, jurors believe eyewitness accounts.

And, in Washington state, the law doesn't allow judges to tell juries about the problems associated with cross-racial eyewitness identification. One Court of Appeals judge says that's wrong.