Attorneys want Pang released from prison

Attorneys for Martin Pang are seeking his release on the grounds that his 35-year sentence for setting a 1995 warehouse fire that killed four Seattle firefighters was unconstitutional and unduly harsh.

In a motion filed yesterday in King County Superior Court, Pang attorney John Henry Browne is seeking to vacate Pang's 35-year prison sentence for four counts of first-degree manslaughter and instead have Pang's prison term reduced to time already served.

The move drew an immediate and heated response from Seattle Fire Chief Gregory Dean, who said he was outraged by efforts to win Pang's early release.

Mary Anne Kilgore, widow of fire Lt. Walter Kilgore, said she and family members of the other firefighters are "outraged and sickened" by the idea Pang could go free.

"It's like a blow to the stomach, and I know that's how we all feel," she said. "You never get over a death, but time does help. But then all of a sudden you're right back there when something like this happens."

If Pang's sentence is overturned and the case goes to a jury trial, "it'll dredge up a lot of memories and open a lot of old wounds," Kilgore said.

"The pain will probably never go away, and to have to go through this again is going to be very difficult. So, I'm dreading that," she said.

JIMI LOTT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Four Seattle firefighters died in January 1995, when a floor in this Chinatown International District warehouse collapsed on them. Martin Pang, who set the fire in the building owned by his parents, was convicted of four counts of manslaughter.

In his motion, Browne says Pang's 35-year sentence is unconstitutional in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that makes it illegal for a judge, without the help of a jury, to impose an exceptionally long sentence. That so-called Blakely decision was issued in 2004 in response to a Washington state kidnapping case.

The Supreme Court essentially said that prosecutors have to prove to a jury that a crime warrants an exceptionally harsh sentence.

"The Supreme Court said that any scheme that allows this sort of exceptional sentencing is unconstitutional, and that certainly applies here," Browne said.

Browne said the standard sentencing range for each count of manslaughter should have been 8-½ years, with the sentences all served at the same time. The trial court judge who sentenced Pang in 1998, however, gave him four sentences of about 8-½ years each, to be served one after the other for a total of 35 years.

Pang pleaded guilty Feb. 19, 1998, to setting fire to his family's Chinatown International District warehouse three years earlier.

Lt. Kilgore, 45, Lt. Gregory Shoemaker, 43, and firefighters Randall Terlicker, 35, and James Brown, 25, died in the fire when the floor of the warehouse collapsed, trapping them inside.

Pang, 49, was prosecuted after a long and involved extradition battle with Brazil, where he had fled shortly after the blaze.

It was one of the city's deadliest fires and few others have come close to having the impact on the community and the Seattle Fire Department, fire officials have said.

The Fire Department, which was hit with lawsuits from the firefighters' families and state fines for safety violations, made major changes to its policies and procedures after the deaths.

In a news conference yesterday, fire department officials responded angrily to efforts to win Pang's release.

"There has been a lot of disbelief," said Fire Chief Dean. "We're outraged and upset."

King County prosecutors said they do not think the Blakely decision is an immediate threat to Pang's sentence because he accepted the 35-year term as part of his plea deal. But they said they will fight hard to make sure he serves his full sentence.

Under Washington law, sentences are standardized, so that criminals who commit the same crimes will face roughly the same time. But in "exceptional" cases, judges had been permitted to increase a sentence above this standard range, using certain factors to tailor the penalty.

But in Blakely, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these "exceptional sentences" are unconstitutional because judges make the decision alone: Juries don't get to hear the facts and prosecutors don't have to prove factors such as deliberate cruelty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Supreme Court ruling stems from the case of Ralph Blakely, a Grant County man who kidnapped his estranged wife, forced her into a small box, screwed the lid shut and drove her to Montana before being arrested. A judge added three years to his recommended sentence of 4-½ years because Blakely showed "deliberate cruelty."

Legal scholars said that because the Supreme Court ruling is so new it's impossible to know its full effects, including whether it will apply to old cases like Pang's.

"We don't have the answers yet," said Seattle University law professor John Strait. "The legislative fixes that are proposed don't even attempt to deal with transitional cases like this. It's going to be up to the courts to work through this."

The time in limbo may be hardest for the family, friends and colleagues of the lost firefighters, Dean said.

Just a little over a month ago, they gathered at the Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Seattle's Occidental Park to honor and remember the men who died.

"It's a sad day today," Dean said yesterday. "When something like this can bring up all the things that were slowly being put away."

Seattle Times staff reporter Sara Jean Green contributed to this report.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com