A year of law & disorder

2005 was the year a governor's election wound up in court, voters upheld a gas-tax increase but killed a monorail, and crime stories ranged from the shocking to the bizarre.

Politics enter doctor-patient relationship

A Richland obstetrician who advocated limiting medical-malpractice awards "fired" a pregnant patient after she refused to agree with him. Dr. Mark Mulholland said his philosophical differences with Jamie Chavez, four months pregnant, were too great to continue the doctor-patient relationship, and offered to refer her to one of his colleagues. Chavez said she considered Mulholland's behavior to be a form of extortion and complained to licensing authorities, who found no cause for action.

— Carol M. Ostrom

Probe brings officer's firing, discipline for 2

After a long-running misconduct investigation, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske fired one officer and disciplined two sergeants in November. Another officer resigned earlier in the year after being told he was under investigation.

Officer John Powers, an eight-year veteran, was fired for using cocaine while employed by the department, as well as permitting others do so while he was present.

His misconduct included participating in a break-in; illegally providing Viagra to a sergeant; and providing sensitive law-enforcement information to someone outside the department, disrupting an undercover law-enforcement investigation. The department also found he regularly left his patrol district and used his patrol car to drive home women he was dating.

Sgt. James Arata was suspended 30 days without pay for referring to a subordinate officer as a "rat" for talking to an investigator looking into misconduct.

Sgt. Joel Sweetland was reprimanded for disclosing to other officers the name of an informant involved in the misconduct investigation.

— Steve Miletich

Terror-plot figure finally gets sentence

Six years have passed since Ahmed Ressam was stopped by an alert U.S. Customs agent in Port Angeles, and the Algerian would-be terrorist only this past year learned his fate: 22 years in prison, with credit for time already served.

Prosecutors wanted 35 years of a possible 65-year sentence. They complained to U.S. District Judge John Coughenour last spring that Ressam had stopped cooperating and had violated an agreement to help with the prosecutions of others involved in his terrorist cell based in Canada and Great Britain.

But Ressam, his attorneys revealed, had suffered an emotional breakdown after years in solitary confinement and repeated interrogations by counterterrorism agents. The 38-year-old Ressam told psychiatrists that he felt betrayed by the government and would rather go to prison and regain his self-esteem than cooperate further.

His defense lawyers said the information he had provided up to that point had been phenomenal and had saved lives. They asked that he receive a 12-year prison term.

In issuing the 22-year sentence, Coughenour angered the government by speaking out against the Bush administration's tactic of holding some prisoners in the war on terror without trial or legal representation.

— Mike Carter

Voters pass up chance to kill higher gas tax

The defeat of Initiative 912, a measure aimed at repealing the largest gas tax in state history, ranks as one of the year's biggest surprises.

The measure seemed like a sure bet when supporters collected more than 420,000 signatures in just 32 days last summer to get it on the ballot.

But a savvy, well-funded opposition campaign helped sway voters to reject the initiative, which would have overturned a 9.5-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax being phased in over four years.

Opponents also may have been aided by falling gas prices. And some believe the hurricane in New Orleans made voters more aware of what can happen when they don't invest in maintaining public structures.

The defeat of the measure unlocks an $8.5 billion tax package passed by the Legislature in April and clears the way for hundreds of transportation projects around the state.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct, with $2 billion dedicated to it, is the biggest project funded by the gas tax. The state estimates there's enough money to rebuild the viaduct, but not to replace it with a tunnel, as the city prefers.

— Andrew Garber

Shocking case could alter sex-offender laws

Joseph Duncan is likely to prompt another rewrite of Washington's sex-offender laws.

Duncan, who spent 20 years in prison for a child-rape conviction, sits in a North Idaho jail awaiting an April trial on charges of killing a Coeur d'Alene family and abducting their 8- and 9-year-old children for sex last May.

Authorities contend that Duncan eventually killed 9-year-old Dylan Groene; the boy's 8-year-old sister, Shasta, was found with Duncan in July in an Idaho restaurant.

If convicted, Duncan could face the death penalty.

The facts of the case have outraged Washington lawmakers. Duncan, 42, was released from a Spokane prison in 2000 despite concern that he was an untreated sex offender. He was wanted by Minnesota authorities on child-molestation charges at the time of his July arrest in Idaho. He's been linked to a previously unsolved child murder in California.

Washington legislators are drafting bills that would give life sentences to people convicted of child sex crimes, stiffen sentences for sex offenders who fail to register their addresses with police, and require released offenders to wear GPS tracking bracelets.

— Jonathan Martin

Charges allege misconduct with inmates

Two King County corrections officers were charged with custodial sexual misconduct following a months-long investigation into allegations of sexual contact between officers and female inmates.

Officers Cedric McGrew and Louis Laurencio, who both worked at the King County Jail in Seattle, have been on paid administrative leave since they were arrested in May.

On Dec. 7, King County prosecutors charged McGrew, 40, with first-degree custodial sexual misconduct, accusing the officer of coercing a 28-year-old woman into performing oral sex. Laurencio, 45, was charged the same day with second-degree custodial sexual misconduct after allegedly shoving his hands down the same woman's pants and photographing her breast with a digital camera, prosecutors say.

Two other officers assigned to the King County Jail are also on paid administrative leave while sexual allegations against them are investigated.

During the investigation into McGrew and Laurencio, an inmate's letter was found in one of the officer's lockers that referred to an incident two years earlier in which a woman claimed she was made to perform oral sex on a now-34-year-old officer while she was housed in the jail's psychiatric unit. That officer was also arrested in May.

A 35-year-old officer was arrested at the jail by Seattle police on Oct. 27 and he, too, has been placed on leave. According to police, he is being investigated for a "sexual offense" involving a female inmate.

Another officer, LeShaun Lake, 41, was charged with second-degree custodial sexual misconduct for allegedly exposing himself to a female inmate. Lake, who worked at the Regional Justice Center in Kent, has since resigned.

— Sara Jean Green

Sexual chats spur recall

Spokane Mayor Jim West was recalled by voters Dec. 6 over allegations that he misused the powers of his office to entice young men into sexual relationships with him.

The vote was overwhelmingly against West, with about two-thirds of voters saying they wanted the mayor removed from office.

The recall came after an investigation by The Spokesman-Review, the town's daily newspaper. The paper hired a computer expert to pose as a Spokane high-school student in online chats with West. The chats were sexually explicit and West talked about City Hall internships, according to transcripts of the chats recorded by the expert.

The newspaper also printed allegations that West molested two young boys 25 years ago. The accusers, now grown men with criminal records, said West molested them when he was a sheriff's deputy and a Boy Scout leader.

West denied those allegations. He did admit he chatted online with young men and had sex with men, but maintained he had not misused his office.

In a news conference the day after the recall vote, West said he had regrets about his personal life, but none about his two years as mayor.

— David Postman

Gregoire victory upheld after court battle

The closest governor's race in history was finally settled in June — seven months after the election.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges ended a two-week trial by declaring Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire the legitimately elected governor and rejecting all claims by Republican candidate Dino Rossi and his party backers.

"While there is evidence of irregularities, as there appears to be in every election based on the testimony of various county election officials, there is no ... clear and convincing evidence that improper conduct or irregularity procured Ms. Gregoire's election," the judge said, in ending the historic challenge to the November 2004 election.

"There is no evidence that ballots were changed, the ballot box stuffed or that lawful votes were removed from either candidate's ballot box."

There were serious problems found in the election counts, particularly in King County, where, among other discoveries, felons were found to have voted. Bridges essentially reprimanded the county for its poor job, but did not find that the problems affected the outcome.

Rossi, a former state senator, won the initial count after Election Day by 261 votes, and won a recount by 42. Gregoire and the Democrats raised money to pay for a hand recount; she won that by 129 votes and was declared the winner.

Rossi and the Republicans filed a lawsuit claiming that errors by election officials, votes by felons and votes counted in the name of dead people put the true outcome in doubt. At the trial, Republican lawyers also alleged fraud in King County, though they did not offer specific evidence of how it might have occurred.

— David Postman

Sims grounds lofty proposal from airline

King County Executive Ron Sims' message to Southwest Airlines: You are not free to fly about the county.

After private negotiations lasting more than a year, Sims said in June he was seriously considering giving Southwest the green light to fly in and out of Boeing Field, aka King County International Airport.

Southwest complained that the cost of operating at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had rocketed out of control. Southwest, the Dallas-based, low-cost carrier, offered to pick up the tab to build a new $130 million terminal and parking structure at Boeing Field.

The announcement spurred neighborhood groups from Georgetown to Magnolia to protest, and Sims, up for re-election, was roundly criticized by the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the state's congressional delegation, even Alaska Republican Don Young, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Airlines at Sea-Tac Airport threatened to decamp for Boeing Field, and Alaska Airlines filed a competing proposal to King County.

As the general election approached in October, a besieged Sims backed off and rejected both proposals from Southwest and Alaska.

— Sharon Pian Chan

Controversy rocks a leading church

A pillar of Seattle's spiritual community, Mount Zion Baptist Church, showed signs of cracking over an internal feud that threatened to overthrow the senior pastor.

But before the predominantly black church with 2,700 congregants could vote on whether to remove him from the pulpit, the Rev. Leslie Braxton announced during a July 3 service that he was stepping down.

"If I stayed, the congregational dynamics would not change ... the fighting, the division, the besmirching of the name of the church would continue," said Braxton, who came to Mount Zion in 1999 from Buffalo, N.Y.

During his final sermon three weeks later, Braxton castigated his opponents without naming names, insisting they were "spiritually unhealthy" and would have to answer to God. His opponents had taken him to task on a variety of issues, including his handling of church finances, personnel matters and programming — and even the content of his sermons.

Instead of leaving town, Braxton started the New Beginnings Christian Fellowship church in Renton in August.

As Mount Zion continues to search for a new senior pastor, the church is being led by the retired Rev. Samuel McKinney, Braxton's predecessor who led the church for 40 years, presiding over its rise as a social, political and spiritual force in Seattle.

— Stuart Eskenazi

Sex with horse proves fatal; ban sought

In the months since a Seattle man gained international notoriety for suffering fatal injuries while having sex with a horse near Enumclaw, his relatives still are coming to grips with what happened.

One relative of the 45-year-old man said he plans to write a letter to legislators in support of a law making bestiality illegal. Last month, James Tait pleaded guilty to criminal trespass in the July 2 incident. The charge stems from the night he and the Seattle man went onto a neighbor's property near the farm where Tait lived in the Enumclaw area, to have sex with a horse there. Tait videotaped the sex, according to court papers. Tait, 54, helped run a business where people could have sex with animals, according to the King County Sheriff's Office. Tait was given a one-year suspended sentence on condition he pay a $300 fine, perform eight hours of community service and have no contact with the horse's owners. State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, said she plans within the first two weeks of the 2006 legislative session to unveil a measure making bestiality a felony.

— Jennifer Sullivan

Storm surge hits pumps, stirs questions

You don't hear too much about gas prices now that AAA says they are down to less than $2.25 a gallon.

But at the end of the summer, when prices in Washington were surging toward their peak of nearly $3 a gallon and the second of two hurricanes was headed toward the Gulf Coast, prices were the bane of drivers and the talk of the country.

According to AAA, prices in the Seattle area peaked at $2.91 on Sept. 11 and then started dropping. After a brief jump back up to a Washington state average of about $2.89 in October, they've continued to slide toward $2 a gallon — just a quarter or so less per gallon than we were spending at the end of 2004.

Oil refineries that provide oil to the South and Midwest were shut down when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans Aug 28. Prices were already on the rise before the hurricane, and they continued a steady climb.

Less than a month later, Hurricane Rita hit the Texas coast and people panicked, fearing prices would go even higher.

In September, Gov. Christine Gregoire and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., joined the call for an investigation into price-gouging.

Oil companies have denied gouging, blaming the prices on increased demand and a pinched supply. They say a complex global market affects gas prices and that they'd be better able to bounce back from changes if there were more gas refineries.

Several recent federal investigations have looked into the issue and found no price-gouging, they said.

— Emily Heffter

Falling rocks kill 3, twice close route

When mountain passes were built decades ago to slice through the Cascade Mountains, state geologists knew that the rock walls could be unstable and dangerous.

But they didn't envision the rockslides during the fall that twice closed Snoqualmie Pass and killed three women returning from a concert at The Gorge Amphitheater at George, Grant County.

After the fatal Sept. 11 slide west of the pass, lanes were closed and it took five weeks to get the pass back to normal.

On Nov. 6, another slide east of the summit closed the pass and later limited traffic to two lanes. An average of 28,000 cars and trucks cross the pass each weekday.

Worried about possible 30-mile backups over the pass, Gov. Christine Gregoire asked travelers to stay home over the Thanksgiving weekend, much to the dismay of Eastern Washington wineries and other businesses that were counting on customers from Western Washington.

— Susan Gilmore

Man, accused in fatal wreck, held in Ireland

After numerous tips and false leads that he was anywhere from Canada to Costa Rica, Fred Russell was finally found in Ireland Oct. 23, exactly four years to the day after he jumped bail in Whitman County, where he was facing trial for a triple-fatality June 4, 2001, drunken-driving accident on Highway 270.

Charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of vehicular assault after his Chevy Blazer collided head-on with a 1978 Cadillac carrying seven Washington State University students, Russell was out on $5,000 bail when he disappeared.

He went to Alberta, then London and eventually Ireland, a country with strict laws governing extradition.

The students were returning to Pullman from seeing a movie in Moscow, Idaho, when the accident happened. Three died, three were critically injured and one survived with only slight injuries. Later, the media and Russell's father received letters in which Russell said he fled because he received death threats and feared he could not get a fair trial.

Last January, U.S. Marshals got a break when someone in Dublin saw their "most-wanted" Web site, recognized Russell — who was employed as a security guard at a women's boutique — and notified authorities. Working with the Irish authorities, the marshals then had to wait to get all the extradition documents together before Russell was arrested.

He has been held in prison as attorneys fight over whether he can be extradited. Under Irish policies for extradition, the alleged death threats could be a strong argument to keep him in Ireland, where he has a fiancée.

— Nancy Bartley

Prostitution bust proves problematic

Tactics two Lynnwood police officers used to investigate alleged prostitution came into question over the summer when the officers were masturbated in exchange for cash.

Court papers that charged two Pierce County women with prostitution revealed that one officer went to the Classic Body Tonic spa three times for services that included genital touching. The second officer received a massage and genital touching.

About two weeks after a story on the case appeared in local media, Snohomish County prosecutors dismissed the prostitution charges. While Mark Roe, chief criminal deputy prosecutor, found the evidence convincing, the way officers obtained the evidence made him uneasy.

Lynnwood Deputy Police Chief Paul Watkins still stands by the officers.

— Jennifer Sullivan

Voters call off cash-strapped Green Line

Seattle voters kill plans for a new monorail line after spending three years and more than $100 million. Ultimately, the project was seen as too pricey.

The Nov. 8 vote halts the dreams and ambitions of a grass-roots movement determined to transform a 1962 World's Fair icon into a forward-thinking mass-transit system.

"We have lost in Seattle and, frankly, we deserved it," Dick Falkenbury, the tour driver who inspired the movement, wrote in a post-election e-mail to monorail supporters.

During the summer, the Seattle Monorail Project had been on the verge of a deal with engineering giant Fluor Enterprises to deliver the 14-mile Green Line. But when the public learned of the $11.4 billion cost — to be paid in car-tab taxes over at least 50 years — support collapsed.

The actual project cost was to have been $2.1 billion. The rest would have been interest payments, forced upward because of money shortages.

On Nov. 26, the city's two monorail trains, the inspiration for so much planning, sideswiped each other near Westlake Center. For now, the city has no monorail service.

— Mike Lindblom

Pods officially in trouble

In November, the orcas that ply Puget Sound every year, some of the most watched, photographed and studied ocean mammals on earth, were officially declared on the brink of extinction by the federal government.

There are an estimated 90 of the charismatic black-and-white animals left in what is known as the "southern resident" population.

Potential culprits in their decline include toxic chemicals, dwindling supplies of the salmon they eat, and noise from boats.

It's not yet clear what restrictions will be imposed to protect the killer whales.

— Warren Cornwall

Man arrested after gunfire, then standoff

Just after noon on Nov. 20, a gunman walked into the Tacoma Mall and used an assault rifle and a handgun to spray the busy shopping center with bullets. The young man, later identified by police as 20-year-old Dominick Maldonado, injured seven people, one of them critically, and took four others hostage inside a music store.

After a four-hour standoff with police, Maldonado disassembled his weapons and gave them to two of his hostages, both men with military training. The men walked him out of the mall, where Maldonado surrendered to police.

Brendan "Dan" McKown was the most seriously injured of the shooting victims. McKown, 38, attempted to draw his own gun, which he is legally allowed to carry, but couldn't fire fast enough. He was shot twice in the abdomen and was partially paralyzed from spinal-cord damage.

Pierce County prosecutors charged Maldonado with 15 crimes, including attempted murder, assault and kidnapping.

Maldonado pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held in the Pierce County Jail in lieu of $2 million bail. Though a Jan. 11 trial date had been set, prosecutors said the case will be continued until late April.

— Sara Jean Green