A Vancouver man was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison for attacking his live-in girlfriend with a baseball bat in October 2013. Vancouver police broke down the couple’s door to rescue the woman.
Jesse T. Duhamel, 38, was originally charged with first-degree attempted murder. However, in an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty Sept. 25 to reduced charges of residential burglary and third-degree domestic violence assault.
The plea deal, negotiated by Duhamel’s attorney, Sean Downs, and Deputy Prosecutor Jennifer Nugent, allowed Duhamel to avoid a potential life sentence because the assault would have been Duhamel’s third “strike” under the state’s three strike law. The law gives a mandatory life sentence to offenders convicted three times of certain violent and sexual felonies.
Duhamel has a variety of mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoid personality disorder, and those were the basis for the deal, said his attorney, Sean Downs.
“We think it is relevant that he did call for (mental health) help prior to assaulting (victim) Kiley Morgan,” said Jennifer Nugent, unit coordinator of the Clark County Domestic Violence Prosecution Center. “We didn’t think a life sentence was probably appropriate if we could come to a different resolution.”
Judge Robert Lewis ordered Duhamel to also serve nine months of probation, undergo mental health and substance abuse treatment, and to have no contact with Morgan for a period of 10 years.
Duhamel has been in the Clark County Jail since his arrest last year. He has credit for 369 days in jail, which will be subtracted from his overall sentence.
Police were dispatched to Duhamel’s home in the 2600 block of East 20th Street at 10:17 p.m. Oct. 3, 2013, on a report that he was suicidal and acting abnormally, according to a court affidavit by Vancouver police Officer Gerardo Gutierrez.
When officers arrived, they heard a woman screaming and being struck with a blunt object. As they attempted to force open the door, they saw Duhamel throw the woman against a window.
“Fearful that (her) life was in jeopardy, I forced the door open and interrupted Duhamel assaulting (her) with a baseball bat,” Gutierrez wrote.
Morgan told officers that Duhamel had struck her in the back with the baseball bat and was going to kill her, the affidavit says.
She was not seriously injured but complained of spinal pain and had welts on her back. She visited the hospital the next day, Nugent said.
During an interview, Duhamel allegedly told police that he thought Morgan “was out to get” him and that she had spiked his drink.
He said he was going to “get her before she got him.” An officer asked him if he intended to kill the victim.
“It needs to be done,” Duhamel responded, according to the affidavit.
Nugent said Duhamel had been doing methamphetamine either on the day of the assault or the day before.
He and Morgan had been living together for about three months.
He has a criminal record in California, Utah and Washington. Past convictions include assault, theft, battery, burglary, robbery and failure to appear in court.
