Karen Dorn Steele

News > Spokane

DOE offers to settle claims

Fri., July 15, 2011

The U.S. Department of Energy has tentatively agreed to settle the claims of 139 people with thyroid disease – the largest settlement so far in a massive civil suit brought by people exposed as children to clouds of radioactive iodine from Hanford during World War II and the early years of the Cold War. Details of the proposed settlement, which must be accepted by the individual plaintiffs, were filed this week in U.S. District Court in Spokane.

News > Spokane

Downwinder plaintiff Rhodes dies at 69

Tue., May 24, 2011

Shannon Rhodes’ losing battle to prove that Hanford radiation emissions caused her spreading thyroid cancer spanned two trials and ended in federal court six years ago. Now, her life has ended as well – cut short by complications from metastasized thyroid cancer.

News > Spokane

Hanford radiation plaintiff near death

Sat., Feb. 5, 2011

A woman suing Hanford contractors over her thyroid cancer, whose request for an expedited federal trial was denied last year by a Spokane judge, lies near death in a Longview, Wash., hospice. Deborah Clark, 61, was transferred from the Oregon Health & Science University hospital in Portland to the hospice on Tuesday, according to her mother, Betty Hiatt, of Vancouver, Wash. Clark’s thyroid cancer had spread to her bones; she cannot walk and needs sedation for extreme pain.

News > Spokane

State bar may weigh in on jury comments

Sat., March 21, 2009

The Washington State Bar Association may be joining the legal debate over whether a Spokane jury’s racially charged remarks against a plaintiff’s lawyer during deliberations in a medical malpractice trial were sufficient grounds to nullify the verdict. The bar association’s Amicus Brief Committee has recommended that the bar’s board of governors vote at its April meeting in Richland to approve a request to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the 2007 case, Turner v. Stime.

News > Spokane

Court upholds retired sailor’s murder conviction

Thu., March 19, 2009

The Court of Appeals in Spokane has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a retired sailor who killed Ken Conklin and wounded Thomas Darco during a drunken party on Spokane’s South Hill in 2007.

News > Spokane

Police begin probe into Shonto Pete shooting

Mon., March 16, 2009

The Spokane Police Department has launched its internal investigation of suspended officer Jay Olsen amid widespread public outrage over Friday’s jury verdict that acquitted Olsen of shooting a man in the head and firing bullets into Peaceful Valley.

News > Spokane

Suspended officer found not guilty in shooting

Fri., March 13, 2009

Suspended Spokane police officer Jay Olsen was acquitted of first-degree assault and reckless endangerment for shooting Shonto Pete in the head and firing four other bullets in Peaceful Valley on Feb. 26, 2007.

News > Spokane

Officer Olsen’s fate rests with jurors

Fri., March 13, 2009

The fate of suspended Spokane police Officer Jay Olsen, charged with shooting Shonto Pete in the head and sending a volley of bullets into Peaceful Valley two years ago, is in the jury’s hands. A standing-room-only crowd, including supporters of Olsen and Pete, packed Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque’s courtroom Thursday afternoon to hear closing arguments.

News > Spokane

Olsen hit with lawsuit in midst of trial

Mon., March 9, 2009

In the midst of his first-degree assault trial, suspended Spokane police officer Jay Olsen has been hit with a new federal lawsuit seeking unspecified monetary damages for shooting Shonto Pete in the head on February 26, 2007.

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