False Arrest Brings $162,500 Settlement And An Official Apology

The King County Prosecutor's Office apologized to an Auburn carpenter today and agreed to pay him $162,500 for wrongly arresting and accusing him of burglary five years ago.

In settling Rodney Fletcher's civil suit, the prosecutor's office also promised to change the way it prepares and files criminal charges.

"This case has already changed the way prosecutors review cases in King County," said Brady Johnson, Fletcher's attorney. "There's a tendency for people to become careless and take shortcuts.

"Prosecutors cannot take shortcuts or be careless. This is a reminder of that."

Fletcher had sued Deputy Prosecutor Lynne Kalina after he was wrongly arrested in 1993 and accused of breaking into a grade school and stealing computer equipment. The prosecutor's office had tried to stop the suit, arguing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that prosecutors should be immune.

But in a stinging rebuke last December, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously disagreed with King County and refused to block the suit.

The case began in 1992 when Fletcher's fingerprints were found at Our Lady of Guadalupe School in West Seattle, where a computer had been stolen. Seattle police forwarded the case against Fletcher to Kalina, who secured an arrest warrant.

In an affidavit of probable cause, Kalina had sworn that Fletcher had no legitimate reason to be inside the school, and that he later tried to sell the computer.

In fact, Fletcher had good reason to be there - he'd been hired to install glass partitions - and it simply was not true that a witness later said he tried to sell the computer.

In a statement released today, Kalina apologized to Fletcher. "I did not intentionally falsely accuse Mr. Fletcher nor would I ever do so," she wrote. "I accept responsibility for having made a mistake in reading the police reports that led me to erroneously charge him. I am very sorry for any harm to Rodney Fletcher and his family."

Johnson said Fletcher is relieved the case is over. "He's glad that the little guy can fight City Hall all the way to the Supreme Court and win."

The case had focused on the dual role prosecutors played in Washington - both as investigators and as advocates for the state. As investigators, they act much like police officers and have limited immunity. As advocates for the state, they have absolute immunity, which protects them from lawsuits.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng had argued that Kalina deserved full immunity because she was acting as an advocate when she signed and vouched for the facts in an affidavit for a search warrant.

King County had followed a practice in which deputy prosecutors review police reports, then summarize the facts in an affidavit. As part of the settlement, prosecutors will now ask detectives to prepare the affidavits.