INQUESTS – WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

If the question is: “Inquests into police officer-involved deaths, what are they good for?” The answer came with a front-page article in The Seattle Times (9/20/24) about inquests held into police officer involved deaths in King County (Seattle). And, the answer in the article is: “Absolutely nothing.”  Indeed, the newspaper article’s headline is “Critics: Inquests ‘horrific in every way”. 

The Seattle Times article begins with this description:

“A King County program meant to provide answers for families of those killed by police - revised in 2018 to broaden its scope and address inequities - remains broken and should be fixed, replaced or abandoned, say prosecutors and private attorneys involved in the process. 

“The coroner's inquest program is unique in Washington and the United States because it impanels a jury to review the circumstances around every law enforcement related death. The 2015 revisions made this program more accessible to the families of those killed providing them with an attorney, and expanded the scope of the inquiries in response to protests that the old process was tilted heavily in favor of police.”

Here are but some of the problems with the current situation. While all the interested parties agreed that inquests should be conducted within 90 days of the person’s death, the current wait time is between four and seven years and there is a backlog. Before 2018 revisions, the inquest’s jury’s finding focused on whether there was criminality involved in the killing and the jury’s findings were considered by the King County Prosecutor in making a decision of whether criminal charges should be filed. However, former Prosecutor Dan Satterberg abandoned the idea of awaiting an inquest jury’s findings, and the Prosecutor’s office now makes a filing decision without considering the inquest jury’s determinations.

Even those who previously supported inquests, such as former Superior Court Judge Terrence Carroll and Sam Pailea, co-chair of the panel that worked on reform of the inquest process, have stated that King County should abandon inquest altogether.

There are deaths that occur under suspicious circumstances where holding a coroner’s inquest makes sense - think of the Chappaquiddick case, but the King County inquest process for officer-involved deaths is not the answer. 

Chapter 8 “Police Officer-Involved Violence and Death” in my book Roadways to Justice, Reforming the Criminal Justice System examines cases involving police officer-involved violence and death, and the chapter offers roadmaps to end systematic police violence by studying past successful and failed efforts to end unjustified police violence. 

You can get your free copy of Chapter 8 just click here