Gypsy leader’s son again facing charges

A federal appeals court has reinstated firearms charges against Thomas Stanko Marks, the oldest son of Spokane Gypsy leader Jimmy Marks.

U.S. District Court Judge Frem Nielsen dismissed the charges last October, saying the younger Marks’ constitutional rights were violated when he did not receive a fair trial in Spokane County Superior Court in 2000.

The basis for Nielsen’s ruling was that the same defense attorney represented Marks and a co-defendant in the state trial, posing conflict-of-interest issues and the question of ineffective assistance of counsel.

At the end of the trial, Marks was convicted of a state assault charge stemming from a 1999 fight he and other members of his family had with a sheriff’s deputy at Holy Cross Cemetery, near the crypt of the late Grover Marks.

After Tommy Marks was convicted of the state assault charge, deputies found a rifle in a Spokane Valley home after he had moved from the home and relocated in California. Deputies were invited into the home by bank officials as they changed locks during a foreclosure action.

Marks has contended the rifle didn’t belong to him.

A Spokane County sheriff’s detective assigned to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives task force used the discovery of the firearm in the home to charge Marks with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Marks also was indicted for possessing a handgun he took as partial payment in a car transaction, then sold after being convicted of the felony assault charge.

After a federal indictment was obtained in Spokane, a SWAT team was used to arrest Marks in 2002 as he was leaving his home in Victorville, Calif.

His attorney, federal defender Steve Hormel argued that the underlying conviction was unconstitutional and, therefore, Marks wasn’t a felon.

The U.S. attorney’s office appealed Nielsen’s dismissal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and a three-judge panel recently ruled the firearms charge should be reinstated.

Hormel is expected to ask for reconsideration or review by the whole appeals court before the case eventually lands back in Nielsen’s court. Marks’ attorney couldn’t be reached for comment on Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Harrington, who handled the prosecution, declined comment on the court ruling that supports the position he had unsuccessfully argued before Nielsen.

The appeals court held that once a felony conviction has been established under state law, federal law governs prosecutions under a law prohibiting felons from possessing firearms.

“Thus, even if Marks received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel during his state criminal proceedings … his state felony conviction may still be counted as a predicate conviction in (the) federal prosecution,” the appeals court said.

The appeals court said “we neither reach nor resolve” the question of whether Marks’ constitutional rights were violated during the state trial.