Police Officers are not Above the Law and We Stand with the Ellis’s Family and this Community

Our office was relieved to hear that last week, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office decided to press charges against the three Tacoma Police Officers involved in the death of Manny Ellis. The brutal killing of Manny Ellis took an innocent and gentle soul away from his two young daughters, and has left our community […]

State v Blake and the Aftermath of Decriminalizing Possession of Controlled Substances

In February of this year, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state’s simple drug possession law was unconstitutional because it didn’t require prosecutors to prove someone knowingly had drugs. State v. Blake __Wn.2d ___ (No. 96873-0) (Feb. 25, 2021) Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud wrote, “the possession statute at issue here does far more than […]

WA Criminal Statute Deemed Unconstitutional!

Today, the Washington Supreme Court held that Washington’s strict liability drug possession statute is unconstitutional. Finding that the statute criminalizes innocent and passive possession – even by a defendant who does not know that drugs lay hidden in something they possess – Washington’s Supreme Court held that the statute goes beyond the legislature’s police power […]

Think the Police Don’t Lie, Think Again

The investigation of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department continues to unfold. Over the summer, the News Tribune reported that the Pierce County Prosecutor was refusing to work with accused Pierce County Sheriff’s drug unit members who were recently placed on a “potential impeachment” list. Several members of the unit are being investigated for possibly violating […]

You are outraged. You want change. Now what?

Five years ago, the Washington Post began to log every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the US. Since the project began, the Post discovered that police have shot and killed approximately the same number of people – 1,000 – annually and that black Americans are killed at a much higher rate than […]

REAL DEFENDERS – REAL ACCOUNTABILITY

The staff and attorneys at Horwath Law are outraged by the horrendous actions of the Minneapolis Police Department this week. On Monday evening, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white police officer’s knee. Mr. Floyd pleaded with officers for several minutes, repeating over […]