Aided by police, Swisher and Sutanto win stalking trial in District Court

Attorney Matthew Swisher won a trial Oct. 18, 2024, in Clark County District Court for a client charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend.

The case was unusual in that the defense called the Vancouver Police Department officer initially assigned the case, as well as that officer’s sergeant, as witnesses. Both officers testified there was no probable cause to make an arrest without further investigation, meaning they could not establish a reasonable belief that a crime had even occurred. No further investigation was ever conducted.

The case took an even odder turn when the Vancouver detective who decided to make the arrest – without doing any additional work – was not even called to testify for the state. Further, it was revealed through testimony that the client’s father, a VPD officer, used to work in the same department as that detective, raising concerns about police following best practices to avoid a conflict of interest.

The client was arrested after his ex-girlfriend said he’d been showing up at a sports complex when she was practicing with her team.

To prove stalking, the state must present evidence that a defendant intentionally and repeatedly harassed a victim with the intent to place the victim in fear, and that the victim was placed in reasonable fear.

Swisher, who was assisted at trial by attorney Owen Sutanto, argued to jurors that the client had a valid and independent reason for being at the sports complex, as he was practicing on the field, directed by one of the coaches of the ex-girlfriend’s team. Further, there was no evidence to show this contact was intentional or harassment and no evidence of any other instances of repeated contact or harassment. Defense also argued the prosecution was politically motivated and raised concerns about internal police conflicts of interest.

Jurors heard that the client would practice on another field and neither the ex-girlfriend nor any of her teammates or coaches ever asked him to leave. The ex-girlfriend testified the client showed up once at her mother’s house and spoke with her mother.

The original Vancouver Police officer and his supervisor said they did not have probable cause to make an arrest, and they were directed to forward the case to the Domestic Violence unit for further investigation. The supervisor said he was told that since the suspect was related to a VPD employee, best practice would have been to forward the case to an outside agency for investigation. The Battle Ground Police Department, which first handled the alleged victim’s complaint since that’s where she lives, refused to take the case back after it was determined VPD had jurisdiction because the sports complex is in Vancouver.

Jurors heard testimony that, if best practices were followed, this case would have been investigated by Battle Ground police rather than Vancouver police due to the close relationship between the defendant and VPD. It was also revealed that the initial call to the police was made by a local Battle Ground politician who was related to the alleged victim.

Still, no other outside agency, such as the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, was contacted about taking the case.

Once the case reached the Vancouver DV unit, the DV detective did not do further investigation. Instead, she wrote in her report that when she received the case, she determined there was probable cause. She went and contacted the suspect and arrested him. Since the prosecutor did not call the detective to testify, jurors never heard why she felt justified in making an arrest.

Defense called multiple witnesses to testify including multiple coaches from the ex-girlfriend’s sports team, the client’s mother, the investigating officer from VPD and the investigating officer’s supervisor.

At one point, the prosecution attempted to call a Vancouver police DV unit supervisor as a rebuttal witness to contest the VPD supervisor’s opinion that further investigation was necessary; however, that DV supervisor was not employed at VPD when the investigation would have occurred. The deputy prosecutor who runs the domestic violence unit even made a special appearance at trial, briefly taking over for the trial prosecutor, to argue for allowing the supervisor’s testimony. But she was no match for Owen Sutanto, who successfully argued the rebuttal witness was not relevant because she had no personal knowledge of this case.

The judge agreed with Sutanto that it was a jury’s job to determine the weight of the officers’ opinions.

After two days of trial and more than 10 witnesses, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Stalking is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.