The Washington Supreme Court recently held, in State v. Nickels, that an elected county prosecutor’s prior involvement in a defendant’s case should presumptively disqualify the entire prosecutor’s office from prosecuting the defendant in the same case. Disqualified
The opinion confirms that its prior holding in the Stenger case remains good law.
The Stenger court held that:
Where the prosecuting attorney has previously personally represented the accused in the same case or in a matter so closely interwoven therewith as to be in effect a part thereof, the entire office of which the prosecuting attorney is administrative head should ordinarily also be disqualified from prosecuting the case.
Notably, at the time that Stenger was decided, the Washington Rules of Professional Conduct had not yet been amended to prevent a government lawyer’s personal conflict of interest from being imputed to their entire office. Accordingly, in Nickels, the government asserted that these amendments superseded Stenger and therefore disqualification of the entire office was not warranted.
However, the Washington Supreme Court disagreed, finding that “no amount of screening can be sufficient to fully wall off [the elected prosecutor] from the case or prevent him from being cognizant of the resources being committed to Nickels’ case… office-wide disqualification—not screening—is required to preserve the appearance of a just proceeding and the public’s confidence in the impartial administration of justice.” The court also noted that the narrow holding in Stenger only applied to the 39 elected prosecutors throughout the state.
Read the full opinion here.
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