King County to simplify process for inquests into law enforcement-involved deaths

King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order Wednesday that will streamline inquests into law enforcement-involved deaths.

Overall, the executive order intends to simplify proceedings and implement a multidisciplinary panel to evaluate law enforcement practices.

The executive action will also suggest reforms to improve the safety of community members and officers.

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“Families deserve accountability, officers deserve fairness and the public deserves a clear, unbiased account of what happened in the case of an officer-involved death,” Constantine said in a statement. “This streamlined inquest process will deliver objectivity, while easing the emotional toll on all involved, and will allow more effective review of officer training and use-of-force policies to help jurisdictions improve procedures and minimize the chance of deadly encounters involving law enforcement.”

Through this new legislation, inquests — a formal inquiry into the causes of and circumstances surrounding the death of a person — will now have to be completed within 12 months of the person’s death. This is a significant change from how law-enforcement-involved inquests worked, as they normally took years before starting the investigation.

A new “Deadly Incident Review and Recommendation Panel” will also be launched, meeting regularly to review the outcome of inquest proceedings and how law enforcement is practicing these policies.

“Previously, once inquest juries completed interrogatories, there was no further review of a case,” King County wrote in its explainer of the executive order. “This new, all-volunteer panel will have expertise in law enforcement accountability, civil rights law, mental health, academia and judicial practice.”

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The panel will also include a person whose family member died after an interaction with a law enforcement or corrections officer.

The deaths of Denis Rodriguez Martinez (February 7, 2019), Ryan Smith (May 8, 2019), Shaun Fuhr (April 29, 2020) and River Hudson (May 6, 2020) will be the first deaths reviewed using the updated inquest process.

Other changes to this process include how records and other evidence are gathered, and that hearings will be livestreamed online. Retired judges will act as inquest administrators and will continue to preside over hearings as a neutral party.

Constantine attempted to make changes to law-enforcement-involved inquests starting in 2018, but had multiple legal hurdles to solve. A 2021 ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court finally allowed any changes needed to the inquest process in question.

“One impact of the Supreme Court’s decision was to change the focus of inquests in a way that made them unnecessarily contentious and drawn out,” King County stated. “Many participants said that cases took too long to resolve and that proceedings were too adversarial. Families, in particular, raised serious concerns about delayed and contentious inquests unnecessarily forcing them to relive a traumatic event.”

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The refurbished “Deadly Incident Review and Recommendation Panel” is expected to convene for the first time later this spring.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest and producer of the Seattle Seahawks podcast, The Reset with Gee Scott. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.