Lawyer says Jordin should get new trial
In oral arguments Tuesday, a lawyer for convicted rapist Arlin Jordin told a Spokane appeals court that the Spokane landlord should get a new trial because of trial court errors – an argument opposed by the Spokane County prosecutor’s office.
Attorney Carl E. Hueber said the victim in Jordin’s 2006 rape trial went to the hospital, where an initial urine test in November 2004 was positive for benzodiazepine, which is sometimes used as a date-rape drug. But the test is notorious for “false positives,” and a later test came back negative for the drug. The tests showed the victim had alcohol and marijuana in her system.
The Spokesman-Review does not identify victims of sexual assaults.
A judge should not have granted a warrant to Spokane Police Department detectives to search Jordin’s apartment based on the initial urine test, Hueber said. “They didn’t tell the court that the test is prone to false positives,” he noted. Police executed the warrant eight days later, seizing drugs from Jordin’s apartment.
Appeals Court Judge Teresa C. Kulik asked Hueber whether the judge granting the warrant had enough probable cause even without the drug test. “I don’t think so, judge,” Hueber replied.
He also complained that three other women were allowed to testify in Jordin’s trial that they’d been drugged, when the evidence from the main victim in the trial “established she wasn’t drugged.” State law allows prosecutors to admit limited testimony from other alleged victims to try to prove a “common scheme or plan.”
He also said the state erred because a portion of the victim’s urine sample wasn’t saved for further tests by defense attorneys.
The state had clear probable cause to search Jordin’s apartment based on the statement by the victim that she was raped, said Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Kevin M. Korsmo. “She did not consent to sexual intercourse,” Korsmo said.
As to the trial testimony by the other women, Spokane Superior Court Judge Neal Q. Rielly followed a four-part legal test required by the Washington Supreme Court to show Jordin had a “common scheme” to victimize women, Korsmo said.
He referred to State v. Lough, a unanimous Washington Supreme Court decision that allowed partial evidence of drugging in the King County rape trial of a paramedic who used drugs to make his victims lose consciousness before he raped them.
“It was amazing so many woman had the same experience. … The judge did not abuse his discretion,” Korsmo added.
Jordin was free on bond pending the appeal of his 2006 conviction on second-degree rape and indecent liberties charges. But he lost his freedom this year on Oct. 9, when Rielly sent him to prison for violating the terms of his parole after another young woman reported that he offered her alcohol and she became dizzy and disoriented during a day of apartment hunting on Sept. 20.