Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Well, happy Wednesday, everybody. I'm MJ Bull, your host of Unbolted again today with Larry Haskell, our recently retired Spokane county prosecuting attorney who's been there for a decade. Larry, thanks for being with us today.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Oh, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to help out educating about the role of prosecuting attorney.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: You bet. Well, we really appreciate it. Yes. You're recently retired as of July 18th. Is that correct? Was that your retirement date?
[00:00:54] Speaker B: That was my last day. And then of course, you know, state rules you can only retire on the first of the following month. So my official retirement date will be one August. But as you know, the board selected an acting prosecuting attorney in Preston McCollum, pending the process that the GOP is going through right now.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But Larry, you've been an awesome, awesome elected official for us in the Spokane county for a long time. I want people to kind of understand.
How did you get, you know, to doing this position the last 10 years? Tell us a little bit about your history and how you got there.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Well, I'll start with just after law school. So after law school, December 1997, I took the February 98 bar, but I had already interviewed with the then elected prosecuting attorney, who was Jim Sweetser at the time. That was his last year, as it turned out. He did one term and, and I was a DPA for four years, district court, felony drug, did some gun cases.
And then of course, 9, 11 happened in the interim. And so I went back on active duty from May of 02 to June of 05.
And then when I came back, I was with the county till mid-2012 as a gang prosecutor most of that time.
And I did a year with the feds. And then I came back to the county in mid 2013 and I ran for county prosecutor, as you know, probably against Brian bags in 2014, and I was unopposed in 18.
And then we had several challengers in 2022.
And that brings us up to today.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been an amazing career of service and thank you for your military service as well. Larry, you just been. I know when I got to meet you back in 2022, when I was running for office, that was my first introduction to you. But it's just been such a treat to get to know you, to understand you're very principled.
You really have led this role with those values of a true Republican, conservative, fiscal conservative, and also not letting this overarching government overreach stuff go too far. So I remember us having this conversation, I think, last year, and you said there's a priority of government and it's safety.
Talk about like just your principles around that.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Well, in my world, anyway, and I think in the world of the people that you just described, conservatives and people that like strong but not overreaching government, that public safety. If you don't do public safety, then you have no business to exist at all.
Public has to feel safe, they have to be safe, and where they live, where they work, the commute to and from, the parking where they're at, and that sort of thing. So I look at it that way, and I think that you need to have a fireman when you need it, a policeman when you need it, and you need roads to travel on and. And you need the opportunity to have a residence where you feel comfortable after that, that priority list, you know, there's nice to haves, which would include things like, you know, the best golf course around or the best parks around and that sort of thing. And I'm not begrudging those, by the way, but I'm saying if you got to cut things from the list, you might put off buying new land for an upgraded arena or an upgraded stadium or something like that and say, hey, we're going to go with the types of facilities that we have, and we're going to prioritize those things that could do you harm or your property.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Right. And I think that's such an important thing. As we see government become bloated and taxes increasing in everybody's pocket but continuing to hurt.
We have to keep those priorities. And I love to hear you speak about that, because I think you always bring it in, you know, back into perspective as what are our priorities that we need to be making decisions on. Every household has to make a priority list, you know, how they're going to spend their money, and so does government. Right?
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Same way. Yeah, exactly. Brought much broader scale, of course, but nonetheless, you look at the things that could hurt you or kill you and all those other things that you need to do to live comfortably, be able to get to and from work, and like I said, a fireman when you need one, a cop when you need one, and that sort of thing, and have them have the staffing to be actually able to provide the service.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Right. And that's where we got into the conversation about is the staffing and the jail and everything. I want to get into that. But first of all, Larry, give everybody kind of a broad view of what this role of a county prosecuting attorney job duties are.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you, the prosecuting attorney is the County's lawyer in RCW 3627.
So my office has three divisions. We do certain types of family law matters.
We represent the county in any action either for the county or against the county.
And we also represent the board of county commissioners, other elected officials and department heads.
And then of course, you know, the one that you hear the most about, unless there's a big failure on one of those other sides, is the criminal side. And that's the largest division that I have or had. I'll try to try to keep it in perspective here. This is all, you know, past time now, but it's a very important role because there is where the prosecuting attorney and his or her staff can impact the public safety most directly, depending on the budgeting that's given to us, of course. And then of course, every year in Olympia and we've seen this, the slow dismantling of the Criminal Reform act and Sentencing Reform act. Excuse me. And they're watering down the statutes reducing police options in some cases. Cases and prosecutor options as well.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah, we want to talk about that sentencing re form act because it is definitely one of the legislation pieces that has hugely impact. I'm sure there's a bunch. But as you hugely impact what's playing out here in Spokane County.
So Larry, talk a little bit more about what you've seen as the prosecuting attorney in the state of things here in the county as far as safety goes.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Well, I actually was noticing long before I ran for the office that every year the legislature seemed to be moving the goalposts to the left.
And that's picked up momentum as the numbers have become more lopsided in the state legislature, both houses.
And the other thing too is the lobbyists that are over there for the more liberal perspective are very organized and they are very much in concert, I can tell you that.
I believe they meet all year long planning. I'll bet they're planning for the next two or three versions of the legislature. So what that does to public safety when you pass laws that hinder or require more requirements of the police before they can use force of any kind or pursue anybody or prosecutors in terms of the sentencing available. And if they undo a strike, then we're going to spend thousands of hours, you know, looking at these convictions and turning them around. We lost when they took out second degree robbery as a strike offense. They first made it prospective. Not surprisingly, the next session they made it retrospective as well.
So we've been undoing third strikes on violent people that we gave a plea offer to that was less time. But the benefit to the state and therefore to the public was we got a strike out of it. Now we no longer can do that. And we undid all the ones that qualified for that benefit bestowed by the legislature, signed by, of course, the governor.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: And so. And what was the impact of that like on the streets?
Did that just. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah, on the streets. What it means is someone who was rightfully in life, in a life without parole situation is looking at a sentencing range and if they've already served it, they're back out on the street and in many cases back in business.
And that's never a good thing for the public. There was a reason and it was initiative by the people, by the way, that instituted the, the three strike scheme in Washington state. About half the states have it and about half don't. So it's a big impact when they start doing that same thing when they, the state v. Blake case where we undid all of our drug convictions that qualified and a lot of people got released from prison earlier because they no longer had the points that they did prior to the legislative action.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we've had this myriad of, you know, almost a snowball effect of legislation that has just increased your, like handicapping what you all can do to keep criminals off of the street.
Right. And that is what we're seeing play out in Spokane.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Well, and the other aspect to it that we're very sensitive to and that is the impact on victims and their family members when you undo a strike offense.
A family that was breathing a sigh of relief that this person is going to be first of all held appropriately accountable for the crime that they committed. But also now they're going to be back out on the street.
It's very disappointing to them.
And there's no, you know, that takes away the certainty and sentencing and that sort of thing that victims actually count on. And again, their family members, they have constitutional and statutory rights in the state. And there's a, there's a phrase in one of the aspects of it that talks about to be defended, you know. No, no less aggressively than those of the accused. But you see the legislature getting last place concern for the victim and the victim's family and in favor of the defendant because they, they don't want it. They don't want anybody in prison in the state. Look how the population is like seven and three quarter million people. We've only got about 15, 16,000 in prison. We're one of the lowest per capita incarceration rates in the country.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. This would be a good time, I think, to talk about that Sentencing Reform act that happened a few years ago. Right. Because when I heard it last year from Preston, when he was explaining it to, we had a series of business roundtables through our Spokane gop.
It kind of lowered the glass ceiling, if you will, and it jammed up our local jails as well. So talk about the impact what that is, what happened with that. And, and then the impact locally that happened. Sure.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Well, the history of the Sentencing Reform act, it came about in the 1980s and it was a response by, in some cases the people, through the initiative process and the legislature to the soft on crime policies that were going on prior to that. So they tightened it up and we got the third strikes law through the initiative. I'm not sure what year off top of my head, but again, it was by the people.
And since then, what we've seen is this dismantling. And when I say dismantling, they're not so much like cutting out specific provisions, but they're just taking the language and they're making the requirements less strict and less penalty overall. It's about less time in prison. Less, less penalty.
And, and, and again, you know, kind of a slap in the face to the victims that were expecting true justice.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Right. And it, it actually ends up because you're softening the penalties. It, it, it enables, if you will, you know, and there's more, it's not a, it's not as much of a disincentive to commit crime.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Right, exactly. And one of the, one of the ways to measure that is what the legislature is trying to do with the consecutive sentencing with multiple deadly weapon enhancements on an A felony, you know, you're looking at five years and that's no good time. And consecutive to whatever your underlying sentence is.
And, and they're trying to make it where a judge has either the option of only sentencing to one deadly weapon enhancement or there's a version where you can have however many you want, but you're only going to run one of them consecutive.
And so there, and oh, another point of the SRA was to take sentencing out of the hands to a degree of the judges where, you know, in one county you had a really tough judge, another county you had a really soft judge. And, and the sentencing was all over the board. The SRA was designed to still maintain a degree of judicial discretion. But however, they wanted the legislature to control the limits, you know, beyond which the judge can't go unless they make a record. So if they make a record of findings that justified what they call a departure from the standard sensing range, then, you know, they. They were able to do that. And. And it would be taken care of in terms of the legality of it at the appellant level.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. So what I understand this sent the recent sentencing Reform act that they've done is they've decreased the sentencing on a lot of these issues that helped kind of flood the local jails and left the state penitentiaries much more vacant. Is that correct?
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that's been part. That's not new, mj. That's been going on for a long time. So under the current law, if Your sentence is 12 months or less, it's a county sentence. And if it's 12 months and one day, it becomes a state sentence.
And even if it's just that 12 plus 1, they go to Shelton, they get processed, and then they. They get housed at a facility.
But if they can push that cost down to the county taxpayer, then there is no state involvement. So there's, you know, less. Less people in the state system, less money the state is spending and more money to the county taxpayer out of their. Out of their pocket because they're. And they're doing that. There's a new grid coming out at some point in time here. There's a new sentencing grid they've been working on for a long time. That does exist. Exactly what you're saying here.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Wow. And so now you have overcrowded, at least I know here we do. And I think across our state, it's pretty similarly here in Spokane county, we have an overcrowded jail. And what does that do to the judges when they are looking at sentencing?
What does that do to, you know, our police when they're looking at picking up offenders? How does. How does that all trickle into what we see play out in the streets of Spokane?
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Well, it plays out. Let's start with the jail itself. Okay, so it was built in the 80s, opened up in the later 80s, and the county population was probably half or less. I used to have the numbers memorized, but I haven't dug into it in detail for a little while. But the county sizes at least doubled.
And so if you look at that right there, if the crime rate in the county remained the same, the jail would have to be able to hold twice the number of inmates it was originally designed to hold.
And we have had upticks in crime. Not all crimes are up, but we've had an uptick in crimes.
And so the facility that we have is outdated. There's blind spots. It's a danger to the inmates, it's a danger to the staff, and it's very problematic. And those are facts. And if you can get a jail visit, if you will, I'm moving this camera around here. I'm sorry.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: It's okay. It's all right. We appreciate you being here.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. But. But in any case, there's times when unless you commit a violent offense, they're not even going to be able to book you into the jail. And Doc, I think, pretty much gave up. They can't get offenders that violate terms of their community custody. I don't even think they can get them in there very often at all. So it's very problematic. And if they're. If they should or would otherwise have been booked into the jail, but they're out on the street, that makes it more dangerous for the public.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And that's what we're seeing. That's exactly what we're seeing in Spokane. And we're seeing. We have business owners and people that just don't feel as safe as they used to, and that's part of the problem. So it's a fascinating. Connect the dots of all these different factors that play into this. So, Larry, let's get back to the job of the county prosecuting attorney and how. So how do they affect all of that? Like, how does that. The person that is in the role that you've been in for the past decade, how does that play into, you know, the impact of all of the above?
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Well, there's a lot of aspects and traits, both personality traits and professional beliefs that the prosecutor is going to have that could change the direction of the office. For instance, an opponent of mine in 2014 had told the prosecutors that he wouldn't need one third of the number that we had already, and because he had, you know, a different vision for the office.
And so that impacts it as well as someone's leadership style, training, experience, and that sort of thing. And how do you interact with people generally?
And then the overarching one, for purposes of this discussion, I think would be, what is your philosophy on prosecution generally and what I tell people. And one of the reasons that I have been kind of the lightning rod on occasion is I refuse to bow to the liberal agenda.
Long ago, I took a lot of heat because I told the county commissioners back I'm not sure when. It might have been as early as 2015.
I said, if you adopt an equity standard for the county, it'll be the bane of your political career for as long as you're in it. The equity standard is not the constitutional standard.
You get equal application of the law. You get equal protection of the law. You don't get special rights, and I wasn't willing to confer those.
And I maintain constitutional standards all the time, and I don't vary from it. So we have constitutional, statutory and 994A411 guides what cases should be filed or can be filed.
And the rules of professional conduct make it such that not only do you follow those, but you have an obligation to.
To ensure that others are doing that as well.
So with those things, you know, I'm not going to be popular with the left. And you know what? Too bad, so sad. I am in the right in the sense of this is a constitutional job and we do constitutional principles.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
So, so important. And as you said it, you said it so well, we're not going to have special circumstances. We're not going to have special, you know, privileges. You know, the constitutional application is equal, you know, application. And that is so important. The other thing you talked about was staffing, and I know you are a, as you've been describing, a very conservative, good conservative, and you're fiscally conservative, so you're always watching your pocketbook. But talk about the impact of staffing. How big is your office now and you know, what would be the impact of lowering that staffing on cases and caseload?
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I can tell you right now, for the population we have, we're right at the top of the list or tied just about with any county in the state. And the only competitors are on the west side, obviously with similar populations. But we file a lot of cases. Our law enforcement works very hard in these investigations. And if they meet the statutory muster, then it is something that we want to file.
What has happened over a period of time is kind of a combination of things.
And that is, first of all, as everybody knows, the state budget is flat. It's projected to remain flat for the next couple of two, three years.
And so we're not going to be getting any extra money. That's one factor. The second factor is there's a statewide shortage of prosecutors or graduates from law school that want to become prosecutors because they can go across the street to a private firm and make considerably more money, even right out of.
Right out of the bar exam, if you will.
So that's been a problem. Public defenders, they're having problems getting people as well. But I think it's more acute, based on my discussion with other elected prosecutors, to the prosecution function. When I left the office a few days ago, we were seven or so DPAs, deputy prosecuting attorneys, short on the criminal side. What that does is if you're looking at a property drug fraud type of caseload, that's 100 to 150 cases that each prosecutor carries.
And so those are cases that we will not be able to file or pursue.
But we end up backlogging some of those simply because we don't have the staff to do them.
And in spite of the fact that we file so many cases, I used to say, welcome to Spokane county, where we work you harder and pay you less.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Isn't that an incentive to come here? Right.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Oh, despite that, and God bless the DPAs in the office, honestly, they do work very hard, and we did get some relief from the board. So I don't want to say that we, you know, that they haven't been deaf to our plea. They understood and they gave us what they could. And it did move the needle, as Preston and I had told the board in numerous of those meetings. But on the whole, prosecutor pay still lags what they could make in the private sector.
And the reason I say God bless the DP is the fact of the matter is they know that. And yet, you know what they do? They continue to work for the people of Spokane County.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Yes. And bless them. Absolutely. God bless them, because we need them. Right. And I was in some of those conversations that you had had with the county commissioner, when you say the board, the county commissioners, last year, you know, discussing this exact thing. And it was pretty eye opening for me. You know, a lot of people don't understand these different structures of government and your county government.
So your budget is dictated by the county commissioners. And this is true probably across the state, I would imagine, Larry. Right.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: For the most part, our office is funded by the general fund of the county.
We do have some grant money that comes in, and it's very competitive. And in this financial world that we're living in right now, it's even more competitive.
So we do get some grant monies and that sort of thing, but overall, the largest chunk of it comes from the board.
And of course, the board's majority of funding comes from sales receipts and taxes and that sort of thing.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Right, right.
Property taxes.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So such an important thing. So. And the reason why we wanted to talk about this today and I'm so gracious, grateful, Larry, for you to come on here is because of your resignation or retirement. Retirement's a better word. Your retirement after 10, you know, great years. And, and we appreciate it again, because you are a Republican county executive that invokes the law, the rcws and it kind of throws the process back to this, the Spokane County Republican Party on how to proceed with filling the vacancy. Right. And so we wanted to help people also hear from Larry about what he believes it takes to do this role and what his perspective on what this job entails.
Do this without endorsing any candidate or any prospective candidate, but just kind of lay it out there not just for the general public to help understand this, how this plays out in your community, but also to help the PCOs that are going to be a part of this process this next 30 days to who will make a recommendation back to the county on who they believe are the best candidates to fill your job until the next election, Correct?
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Absolutely. And you know, I'm really grateful for the process.
So that's, that'll be the next thing they change right. In the legislature.
But I'm grateful for the process that, you know, it's, it's a GOP candidate who's in the office and it goes to the GOP to nominate up to three people, rank ordered to send to the board for their consideration.
Some of the other qualities though that are important in the prosecutor is not only technical competence as far as it goes, but the other thing is you have to have a sound management style and understand you're going to supervise people directly or indirectly from several different generations in terms of their age groups. And one of the things that I always tell everybody, and you have to have this in a leader. You don't play favorites. You reward hard working people with promotions and positions of authority and supervision, but you don't ask anything of anybody that you're not willing to do yourself. The person needs to be present.
I had people come in and tell me, larry, I've been around a long time, I've seen a lot of elected officials, but I've never seen an elected official here as often as you are. That's what the prosecutor needs to be. The other thing the prosecutor needs to be is you need to treat people with the same dignity and respect as you want for yourself. To me, what that means is I treat everyone well. I treat them with respect, I treat them with dignity.
I would say the same thing should apply to judges if you want dignity and respect, Give some and you'll get it.
So it's important that the prosecuting attorney that the GOP ultimately decides that they want to send to the board is going to be somebody with technical competence. And that doesn't necessarily mean just longevity.
I knew people that learned to fly an airplane a lot quicker than somebody else.
And so just because you've been doing it longer doesn't mean. Necessarily mean you're going to be the best at it. So they need to look at the technical competence. What is the resume, the skills, the experience, and what is the likelihood that a given candidate, and I think this needs to be addressed, is likely to subjugate themselves to someone else's agenda instead of the constitutional agenda?
Because if they're willing to do that, they're willing to sacrifice your interest as well.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Boy, can't state that enough, Larry. And I think that is the challenge that we have in front of us for a lot of these elected positions.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of pressure to go along, to get along once you get elected. Right. Or even before you get elected, to try to get the money to get elected. And it is so critical, and we can see the impact playing out in our, you know, communities and our environments of not holding true to these constitutional principles and, and deviating for whatever reason, that that is not your true line and your true center. Right. And so, man, you know, anything else around that, because you're, you're so right, like, if, if that's not somebody's, you know, center line, the Constitution that would be in this role or any other elected role, quite honestly, that the effects could be hugely detrimental to a community.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Exactly. And, you know, everybody that takes an oath of office talks about how they'll support the Constitution.
I'm not sure what Constitution some of them are supporting because it doesn't appear to be the same one that I support and that I served not only here stateside, but in foreign countries, defending the Constitution of the United States on foreign soil. And in all honesty, I look at people and they say that oath, and it doesn't mean a darn thing either. It doesn't mean a darn thing, or they don't know exactly what the Constitution says. Because if you're asking for me to take the office or anyone to take the office and grant special rights to a class of folks or whatever it happens to be, we do not discriminate against anybody. We've applied constitutional standards to it. And again, that draws disfavor from the left. Look at the national stage. If you're not willing to go their way, they're going to do what they can to try to destroy you. So you need somebody in the office with the backbone to stand up to the liberal left and say, you know what, here's what you get. And if you want something else, as Justice Scalia said, get a lot more people that think like you do to vote for somebody else.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah, great point, great point. Absolutely. Well, I want to bring up, these are the, the geo, the Spokane County GOP bylaw. So this is what dictates how our organization runs our Spokane County Republican Party. And every county in our state has a Republican Party organization. They have a Democratic Republican or Democratic Party organization as well.
And again, since you are a Republican that hold this office with the vacation, with the vacating of this office, as we said earlier, now this goes to the GOP party and it says right here in the 9.2.
Is that the right one? Yeah. The vacancies in the state legislature and partisan county elected offices, which is yours, consistent with the Washington State Constitution, Article 2, Section 15, vacancies in republican state legislative and county partisan elective office shall be filled by the following procedure. And then the 9.2.1 talks about for districts within Spokane County. So this is what is dictating our process. And we've started, we just went through this actually at the very end and beginning of this year, end of last year, with a vacancy of the county treasurer with Baumgartner being elected to Congress. So we're very familiar with this process in Spokane. And we have this new vetting process.
So any candidate that wants to apply to be the county that is nominated to the county commissioners then needs to apply to the GOP county and they'll go through a vetting process where a team of pcos and county community members will vet them, you know, and they're going to ask questions like Larry, what you just brought up, you know, are you aligned with the Constitution? Or they may ask, I don't know exactly the questions, but there is an application so it's consistent. And so that's open until, I believe, Monday through the Spokane county gop. And you can find that information, I believe, on the website.
And then they'll go through that vetting process. That vetting team will then report back to the pcos, added an assigned date. And I think that they've already set that date. It's in the middle of August. I want to say August 16th, but I, but I forgot to look at it before I got on Here.
And let's see. Yep. It's August 16th. So that's going to be our assembly, our meeting for the PCOs, then to debate and discuss on who they will recommend in a prioritization order to the county commissioners. And then it's ultimately up to the county commissioners to decide who will be their pick for this, for this interim time until the next election. Correct.
Does that sound about right, Larry?
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So that would run.
Whoever the board selects will have the office for the rest of my term, which is the end of 20, 26. 6. And then, of course, the election will be decided in November, so everybody will know who that person's going to be after that date. And of course, now it's not election night, it's election week, right?
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Oh, it's more like weeks.
I've been following it pretty closely, and unfortunately, Washington is, is. Is not efficient.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Well, and you know, as a firm believer, the mail in is not my favorite way to do it for all the reasons that I'm sure all of you have, and that is there's just too many opportunities for fraudulent activity. I've never seen anything prosecutable come across my desk. So the sheriff's office would be investigating that if there was allegations, and then they would turn over whatever they had to us. But nonetheless, the surest way of making sure that people are identified or the way that we used to. To do it. I wish the legislature would go back to that, but as long as they have the numbers that they have, they're not likely to do that. But that is the manner in which you. You make sure that only properly registered voters vote is you go to a polling place, you show your identification, sign your signature, take a ballot, go to the booth and turn it in.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Yep. I so agree with you. And I remember those days we did precinct voting. You know, I went to our local school is where they had the precinct voting for my precincts and other local precincts. And, you know, you oftentimes, you knew people there or you knew at least somebody there, or you got to know your neighbors there. And you're right, you signed on the line, you know, you showed your id, you proved who you were, and there was a chain of custody also with these ballots. There is not a chain of custody right now.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Exactly. Well, and it's like I said, there's just so many opportunities, and if we went back to that, I think there'd be a much higher degree of confidence across the state, at least in the conservative minds as to the legality of the vote. And the accuracy of the vote. And that doesn't mean that, you know, anybody else should be discriminated against. Absolutely not. But we want to make sure that only registered voters who meet the requirements of the state law are in fact the voting public and the ones that are signing these ballots.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. Because if you're not, if you're not a legal citizen and you're not registered, you're legally registered to vote. I mean, who's to say somebody couldn't go, you know, vote in one county and then go vote in another and go vote in another or maybe 20 of their friends or maybe they go vote in two different states? You know, we're right here next to the Idaho border. I mean, there's just way too much room for opportunity, for fodder here. So we've got to get back to that.
I've got, we've got a great comment from Lyle. You know, Lyle, Larry says. Tell Larry we the people really appreciated the letter he wrote to the media and the public supporting our citizens, standing up for our community when our downtown core door was indeed siege under the COVID riots. It was a true testament to his belief in alignment with both of our state and U.S. constitutions. Thank you, Larry. So appreciate our long standing leadership within the Spokane County.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Oh, that's, that's awesome. Thank you. I, I, I love it, and I love it even more because like I said, when you stand up for these, those principles that I mentioned, and you're unwavering, you take the attacks, you see it happening on the national stage right now, and it happens here in Washington.
And to hear that from Lyle, and that just makes me know how right I was.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Yes, you were. And that's, you're right. Whenever you take a stand, you're going to get attacked.
And so it takes somebody with some fortitude and some spine, but also very principled to be able to do this job. And like you've described to us today, I mean, you, you have to advocate to the county commissioners, you have to advocate to the public on the needs that you have, you know, to run the office like you think needs to be run, to be able to keep people safe, to have enough, you know, prosecuting attorneys in your office to be able to do the due diligence. And then of course, you're always trying to manage that with understanding people's pocketbooks and taxes and all of that.
And then you have all the other parts of this understanding the law, the application of the law to these criminal cases. And who do we prosecute next I mean, there's just a lot to it.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, another aspect to the job that's important because one thing that gets overlooked sometimes and I'm going to. I'm going to give a shout out to the conservative members from our county especially, but across the state that go to Olympia and get beat up about the head and shoulders over there for their conservative perspective.
And one of the things that I've done over the years is at the request of any of our state legislators, whether it's state senate or the House, if they ask me to testify on a bill that they're favoring, you know, regardless of whether it's got a chance and all heck of making it, we do that as well, too. I have, I've had Preston McCollum share some of those duties with me since he was the chief criminal deputy there under me. And between the two of us, we try to be as responsive as we can and add that conservative voice from the prosecutor's office to the voice from the legislators. They work hard over there for us. They don't get a lot of love either, because if, just like the prosecutor, if you stand for that constitution in its original form or the manner in which it was intended, you're just going to be beaten up. But, you know, we can't give up. We need to stand up and hopefully at some point in time with the numbers to turn the ship around.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So you have. So this role is both an outward, you know, PR role, working with legislators, working with, you know, to influence how what laws are passed, what bills are passed or not passed, you know, impact about the victim. I think you've brought that up and I can't, I think we can't state that enough because the victims rights, the victims have been hurt through a lot of this legislation and people don't understand. They just think you're reducing a penalty on a criminal. But what you are doing is now unprotecting these victims that have, you know, had these acts on. On them.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And. Well, and the other thing about victimhood and that is it's very random. And nobody wakes up in the morning hoping to be a victim that day. But unfortunately, in Spokane county alone, a number of people are going to be that victim. Whether it's from a violent act all the way down to you parked your car and all of a sudden there's an empty spot there with some broken glass and it happens. And the core of downtown, you know, talk to the business leaders, they're not very comfortable down there. I think Businesses have left, they've closed, they've gone out of business.
And even police officers, when they're off duty sometimes don't like going into certain areas. In downtown Spokane, we should not have to feel like that and we should be taking the steps. But I'm not seeing it from the mayor's office.
And of course, you know, the mayor's office is the ultimate authority for the Spokane Police Department. I know a lot of great cops in that organization, and I'm concerned for them and their safety under the current policies adopted by the city.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: Right. And it feels like their priority is not safety. Right. As far as they keep doing their budget, it feels like they're stripping more resources away from the police and away from, you know, those people that are, that are there to help protect us and then trying to pass other tax, you know, burdens on to citizens to try to get that money back. Is that your perspective or am I off in la la land here?
[00:46:12] Speaker B: No, I share that same perspective. And, you know, the liberal mantra is, there's no problem that you can't solve if you just throw more money at it.
You know, they used to say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. But that's exactly, exactly what they do. When it comes to addressing the kind of problems that we have here in Spokane, you need more than that. And they haven't shown a willingness to do it, or maybe they just haven't seen it yet. But again, we create more victims by just throwing money at problems. That's not going to do it. It's going to take a much more structured approach than that.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And Larry, talk about the impact of this compassion.
I think there was a compassion resolution by the city.
And what I mean, is it helping? Is it making crime less? Is it helping homeless get off the streets and helping them straighten out their life and get better? I mean, you see the criminal side of it.
What's the impact?
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they're really not impacting it at all. I did a ride along. That's another thing that good prosecutor will do occasionally. You're very busy, but do a ride along with law enforcement, go out with a sheriff's deputy, go out with a sergeant in the Spokane Police Department, go out with a state trooper and just live a shift or part of a shift in their world, and they'll be happy to tell you all about the impacts that either are or are not happening. I did one within the last three weeks of my retirement that I spent several hours in A patrol car with a 36 year veteran of the Spokane Police Department.
And I got myself an education on fentanyl being openly smoked in the city and businesses not wanting the police involvement or, you know, and it's just, it's a crazy world that, that they're living in right now. And I know that particularly those with a lot of longevity, that's not the kind of police work they signed up for and to ignore stuff and you know, go give them Narcan and then the next thing you know, they, they pop back to life, if you will, and off they go for, for another hit.
So throwing money at that problem is not going to be the answer.
And law enforcement is just over tasked and understaffed.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And you do see that downtown, unfortunately, a lot of people standing around. I know people that work down there that they tell me, you know, people doing drug deals. Right. Right on the streets and, and do, you know, just like what you described. And it's, it's not a good, it's not good for them, it's not good for the community. It's enabling. Can this continued behavior. That is not compassion.
That is not compassion.
[00:49:19] Speaker B: There was a candidate for the legislature recently that talked about compassionate persuasion as a tool. Now it sounds good and you gotta put some meat on the bones. But what the idea is, money alone will not solve this problem.
And one of the reasons, and I've learned this through my contacts with the police as well, one of the reasons we have as many homeless come here, they're coming here because Spokane provides the best services in the entire region.
So, you know, keep that in mind when you start thinking about, you know, is this just homegrown homelessness or is it being imported? Because quite frankly, what I'm being told is some of it and maybe a significant part of it is import.
And in fact, one of the officer involved shootings that I had to render a decision on two, three years ago was from one of those very people who bust over here from Seattle, immediately got in trouble with the police and ended up ultimately taking his own life in a confrontation.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. And the policies, our policies are causing that to play out. You've always got to look at the policies that are creating this environment. And because of our local policies, there's a reason why people are coming here, maybe not going to other communities. So we got to look at, you know, who, what the leadership in Spokane, the city of Spokane, the mayor, the city council are passing to, to and you know, entice this type of environment.
And it's it's not. It's not a good environment. And again, it's not compassion to. To enable people to continue in a bad place, continue doing things that are harmful to them, that are harmful to the community.
Like you said, I mean, we have businesses moving out. I think the numbers have been the worst since COVID the last two years, this year and last year, I believe there was more businesses that moved out of the downtown Spokane that moved in. And. Yeah. So I agree with you, Larry. I gotta share this other comment with. With you. It was. It's pretty neat. This is one of our listeners. Our viewers said, on behalf of the entire Spokane County Republican Party Executive Board and Central Committee of Precinct Committee Officers, we wish to sincerely thank you, Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Haskell, for your many years of service with Spokane county and its cities and schools. The US Air Force has a B52 and a B1B pilot right here at Fairchild Air Force Base. And your general support for commitment to the Spokane GOP as a PCO and lifetime supporter. Thank you, Larry.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Thank you.
It's been great.
And I want to see things get even better. Obviously, we got to turn some things around, and we don't have the numbers to do that right now. But I will tell you this. If you put a principled prosecutor into that office who will, without favor, without wavering, conform to the Constitution of the United States, the State of Washington, the statutory scheme, and the rules of professional conduct, and be willing to be that lightning rod because you're gonna be and not run from it.
Cause I know some that did.
But stand tall, stand strong, and work together to create the community that we actually deserve.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: Yeah. We've seen a ton of politicization of our attorneys, of the lawfare. Right. And we've got to keep that out of that. Justice is blind, right, Larry?
Absolutely blind.
[00:53:10] Speaker B: Well, it's supposed to be. And judges are supposed to be, too. That's why we have lady justice there with the scales with a blindfold on as any. You know, while we're on the subject, there's actually a state statute that I like to quote to people as well. It's 994A 343 40. And it basically says there's only two things that you consider in prosecution and sentencing. So you got the prosecution function on the one hand and the judicial function on the other. It says the only two things that you should consider is the crime at hand and the criminal history of the accused. That's it.
[00:53:52] Speaker A: There you go. That's simple. You know, and, and all the rest of it needs to be out of the courts, right?
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not. Criminal courts are not equity courts. Those are like family law courts, civil suit type stuff, when a judge has to, or a jury, as the case may be, assess damages and that sort of thing.
This is a statutorily codified process that's outlined in the Constitution and then. And then codified in statutes. So. And like I said, I'm surprised the legislature hasn't attacked that one. But it's still in the books, it's still the law, and it still gets followed in Spokane County.
[00:54:33] Speaker A: Good, good. And we appreciate that. Larry, any final thoughts or words of advice to either the pcos or, or your potential person, you know, candidate that may follow in your footsteps?
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Well, you know, without getting the area that you had mentioned early, I do know that the acting prosecuting attorney is selected by the Board of County Commissioners, is a strong believer in the same principles that I have outlined before you today.
He has been doing it since he was chief criminal deputy. And I'm confident that he will be that unwavering pole in the tent that stands up for those principles that I know the GOP holds near and dear.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: Appreciate that. Yeah, it's a very, very important role. And I really appreciate, because you've helped a lot of people, again, a lot of people don't understand these different roles in our community, the way they impact our community, the way they impact them personally. And you've really outlined for us what all is entailed in this role in this job. And also then the impact on our communities that this has is a very integral, important role in our community. And we've got to be very thoughtful about who we nominate as the Republican Party, you know, to fill your seat for the remainder of your term. And then also going into next year, we're going to be looking at candidates that are going to be running for this office. And I'm sure we'll be hearing about your thoughts on that moving forward as well and possibly who you'd prefer.
Sure.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: I have told many people and I'll tell anybody here in the party, and that is I'm keeping this phone number and most everybody has it or knows somebody who has it. And, and I will answer the phone.
I will do the best I can to provide any information, insights based on my experience, not only as the elected county prosecutor, but somebody who was hired in May of 1998 to be a deputy prosecuting attorney.
And I'm very interested still in the continued success of the county and that we make the necessary improvements to community, community safety and that we stand true to the principles that should be guiding us and not the ones ones that they're tempting us to be guided by.
And anybody that does that needs to be a stalwart because I'm telling you, you're going to be the, the one they're slamming the hardest. That's the one you need to look at and say what's really going on there. I wish the media would help us to do this, but they have nothing but spin. And unfortunately, you know, media that can reach so many people and educate them, just like you, we've kind of done today. MJ it's absent because that's not, that's not what they get paid to do, or at least not the way they see it. And I say that it's the majority. There are some exceptions, of course.
[00:57:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing, Larry, is because we are the media now, as Elon Musk has said, because we can't count on the local mainstream media not having an agenda. We see that locally with our spokesman, the spokesman review. We see that also with our, you know, the TV stations. There's always an agenda and it might be slight and it might be subtle, but it's certainly there. And you're right, there's always going to be a spin on it. And it's really important for us to dig out the trail. And so we have to do, we have to do extra measures, especially because we're conservative, to, you know, provide the truth for people. And that's what I'm about. I know, Larry, that's what you're about. We want the truth, the truth to reveal. We don't care if you're conservative or liberal or whatever party you're part. We want truth to prevail and we are going to dig to find the truth. And, and that's what I appreciate about what you've done. We've got another comment from a listener, Nick Richardson, that said the two most important positions in every county is the prosecutor, prosecuting attorney and sheriff. Both are our last line of defense against unconstitutional mandates and laws. Any thoughts you want to share on that?
[00:58:54] Speaker B: LARRY I fully agree with Nick that the county sheriff is actually given the most power and authority, but second only to the sheriff is the county prosecutor. So if you've got a, a weak one or you got one that isn't going to stand up or you got one that's going to run away when the Temperature goes up, the county will be not well served.
And I know that at my working with. Throughout the years I've worked with Sheriff John Knowles, he's very, very strong. He's very, very principled. And I don't know that I can get into the June 11th stuff or the.
That went on. I think it was June 11, with downtown there with ice and that. And, and I can tell you that your sheriff stood straight up and had a conversation with me, and then he went out and did what he gets paid to do.
[00:59:54] Speaker A: That's. That's great to hear. And, and we'll have to maybe have that conversation another time, Larry, because I think that a lot of people don't know, you know, kind of all that happened and, and what our sheriff did. You know, there's some sheriffs that probably wouldn't have done that, wouldn't have stood up, like you said. And, and I think that's really important. People need to understand that. And our. Our mainstream media may not report on that. Right. Very accurately or in depthly, but we're gonna. We're gonna keep trying to do that. So, Larry, thank you so much for not only your time today, but just for serving this community. You know, gosh, it's almost been 30 years you've been a prosecuting attorney in the county. Right.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: It really flies by. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve. I'm proud of it. I'm very glad that I did it, and I appreciate the invite. And if anybody wants to have any offline conversations, I would welcome those as well.
We're going to only be in the local area for a few more days, but again, I keep this number, and if you have it, great. If you don't, I know you know, somebody who does, and I'll be willing to help out in any way that I can.
[01:01:10] Speaker A: Well, we appreciate it, and we want you to have a fabulous retirement. We want you, wherever you're going to be, to just take it all in, Larry, and rest and relax and. But. But don't be a stranger, please. Always know if you ever want to come on here and talk about something or you're seeing something of concern in this community or, you know, even Ashley, like, hey, let's talk. Because it's. It's great information, again, I think, for people to be educated on the process and on these rules, these important rules in our community and how it impacts people right here in our community. So much focuses on, you know, national politics or the president or the federal, you know, Congress, but the most impact is right here locally, on each of us individually. And we need to better understand and be educated on these positions and these processes here. So, Larry, I'd love to have you on any more time, but go take some time, Rest, decompress, enjoy some beautiful weather. And thank you again and blessings to you and your family for all that you've given to this community, Larry, through so many different avenues. We really appreciate you.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: Thank you so much. And I'm only a phone call or a link away for the next meeting.
[01:02:27] Speaker A: Okay, Sounds good, Larry. Take care. Blessings.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Take care. Talk to you later. Bye bye.
