OLYMPIA — By the time Arlene Roberts’ killer came up for sentencing, the 80-year-old woman had been dead for more than three decades, and no friends or relatives were left to speak for her in a right Washington guarantees to victims and their families.
So King County sheriff’s Detective Scott Tompkins, who cracked the “cold case” in 2010 by tracking a fingerprint left at the scene to Ronald Wayne MacDonald, spoke. He argued that MacDonald, who accepted a plea bargain to second-degree manslaughter to avoid a trial on first-degree murder, should get a stiffer sentence than the agreement stated. Roberts was strangled with a blouse and a hairnet, and died “a horrific death,” he said, producing photos from the crime scene in the elderly widow’s trailer.
Judge Harry McCarthy gave MacDonald five years in prison, rather than the five-year suspended sentence in the plea bargain. MacDonald asked to withdraw his plea or have the judge stick to the plea bargain. McCarthy said no; so did the appeals court. But last month, a divided state Supreme Court said MacDonald is entitled to withdraw his plea if the agreement isn’t honored. Investigating officers can’t undermine a plea deal with unsolicited remarks on behalf of a victim, the majority said.
But Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, thinks for victims like Roberts who have no one else to speak for them, officers should be allowed to speak. A new bill he sponsored would add that exception to state law, and keep the court from overturning sentences under similar circumstances in the future.