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Summary
A new executive order issued today by King County Executive Dow Constantine streamlines inquest proceedings, implements a multidisciplinary panel to evaluate law enforcement practices, and suggests reforms to improve the safety of community members and officers.
Story
Today, King County Executive Dow Constantine issued a new executive order that streamlines how inquests are conducted. Under the County Charter, an inquest is held whenever an interaction with law enforcement or corrections officers plays a significant part in a person’s death and is an administrative, fact-finding inquiry into the causes and circumstances of the death.
“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,” said Executive Constantine. “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.”
Key changes in the new executive order include the following:
- Inquests will now be completed within 12 months of a person’s death by focusing on the core investigative function, a major change from the previous process where inquests often occurred years after a deadly use-of-force incident happened.
- A new Deadly Incident Review and Recommendation Panel will meet regularly to review the outcome of inquest proceedings and law enforcement practices and policies to develop recommendations for consideration by community members and policymakers. Previously, once inquest juries completed interrogatories there was no further review of a case. This new, all-volunteer panel will have expertise in law enforcement accountability, civil rights law, mental health, academia, and judicial practice. It will also include a person whose family member died after an interaction with a law enforcement or corrections officer.
- The inquest hearing participants will now include the Inquest Administrator, Inquest Program attorney(s), witnesses, and the jury. Counsel from the parties involved in the deadly use-of-force incident will have the opportunity to present their view of the matter to the inquest attorneys but will not be direct participants in the inquest itself.
While much will change under the new Executive Order, some aspects of the current process will remain, including:
- The comprehensive gathering of records and other evidence from all available sources to inform the inquest.
- Inquest Administrators, who are retired judges, will continue to preside over hearings as a neutral party.
- Hearings will continue to be live streamed online, with recordings made available afterward, to promote transparency and understanding of the process.
The following will be the first cases reviewed using the updated inquest process:
- The death of Shaun Fuhr, which occurred on April 29, 2020.
- The death of River Hudson, which occurred on May 6, 2020.
- The death of Denis Rodriguez Martinez, which occurred on February 7, 2019.
- The death of Ryan Smith, which occurred on May 8, 2019.
In addition, the death of Isaiah Obet, which occurred on June 10, 2017, will proceed now that former officer Jeff Nelson has been sentenced in his criminal case.
King County has a long history of conducting inquests. For decades, the inquest authority has been vested with the county executive. Since 2018, they have been carried out by the county's Inquest Program.
Executive Constantine first sought to amend the inquest process in 2018, but proceedings were held up for several years by legal challenges. Those challenges were resolved through a 2021 ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court, and inquests resumed soon after. Since then, 21 hearings have been conducted by the Inquest Program, under the process outlined in a 2021 executive order.
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. 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.
Considering these developments, Executive Constantine worked with partners and legal counsel to draft the new executive order to update the county's inquest process. As the state Office of Independent Investigations (OII) comes online over the next few years, improved death investigations will further enhance the inquest process.
The new executive order is effective immediately and the new Deadly Incident Review and Recommendation Panel is expected to convene for the first time late this spring after a nomination process is completed.
Relevant Links
Executive Order (PDF)
King County Inquest Program
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