Winning a loser of case

Hawke’s client was charged with two counts of violating a domestic violence no-contact order, a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. The no-contact order was put in place after the client was arrested for assaulting his wife, but the prosecutor dismissed the domestic violence charge for a lack of evidence.

As often happens in domestic violence cases when the original charge is weak, a detective focused on catching the defendant in the act of violating the no-contact order.

In Hawke’s case, her client was out of custody while his assault case was pending but his wife was in the Clark County Jail on unrelated charges. He accepted two phone calls from her while she was in jail. All calls from the jail are recorded. A Vancouver police detective who works out of the Domestic Violence Prosecution Center said during a pre-trial interview that she frequently checks jail telephone logs to see if people in her cases are making calls. In Hawke’s case, she listened to two calls between the defendant and his wife.

Hawke didn’t have an obvious defense to present to the jury. During the calls the client and his wife made their identities clear, so Hawke couldn’t argue that it wasn’t her client on the phone. She tried to keep the calls out of evidence, but the judge allowed them in.

The jury was told the prosecution had to prove four elements beyond a reasonable doubt in order to return a guilty verdict: That there was a valid no-contact order between the client and his wife; that the client knew about the order; that the client knowingly violated the order; and that the defendant’s act occurred in Vancouver, Washington.

Hawke latched on to that last element during closing arguments. Obviously the wife was in Vancouver at the time, as she made the call from the Clark County Jail in downtown Vancouver. But where was the defendant when he accepted the call? He was on a cell phone, and there was no testimony about which jurisdiction he was in when he spoke to his wife.

The verdict? Not guilty on both counts.