PORT ANGELES — State Supreme Court candidates, including Justice Susan Owens, formerly of Forks, engaged in a spirited discussion at a forum Monday on a state-high-court death penalty case involving accused double-murder Darold Stenson of Sequim.
They also took up the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent validation of the federal Affordable Health Care Act.
In attendance at the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce’s weekly luncheon was the full complement of Position 9 candidates: Kitsap County lawyer Sheryl Gordon McCloud, King County Superior Court Judge Bruce Hilyer and Seattle lawyer John Ladenburg, all of Seattle, and former Justice Richard Sanders of Olympia.
But Owens’ two Position 2 opponents, lawyers Douglas McQuaid and Scott Staffne of Seattle, were no-shows at the forum along with the two Position 8 opponents, lawyer Bruce Danielson of Port Orchard and recently appointed Justice Steve Gonzalez of Seattle, all of whom had been invited, said the chamber’s Executive Director Russ Veenema.
In their introductions, Owens, seeking her third term as the state Supreme Court’s seventh female justice, touted her 29 years of Clallam County ties as a former Forks District Court judge and Port Angeles lawyer, while Hilyer said he has more judicial experience than his opponents.
McCloud stressed her 25 years spent arguing before the state Supreme Court and appellate courts, Sanders touted his dedication to preserving individual rights, and Ladenburg noted his background as a former Pierce County prosecutor, Pierce County executive and defense attorney.
The half-hour of candidate introductions left just 15 minutes for questions for the five seasoned public speakers.
Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said the cost of felony justice proceedings “will either bankrupt us or force us to raise our taxes in the short term, and by that, I mean five years.”
He questioned the state Supreme Court’s May 10 overturning of Stenson’s Clallam County Superior Court death penalty sentence for the 1993 murders Stenson’s wife, Denise, and business partner, Frank Hoerner, also of Sequim, calling it a “process case” and directing his query at McCloud, who represented Stenson before the court.
The court ruled 8-1 — Owens did not take part in the decision — that the state “wrongfully suppressed” photographs until 2009, or 15 years after Stenson was sentenced to death, that suggested evidence might have been mishandled.
“This mattered,” McCloud said. “The guy might not have been guilty. The only other evidence was circumstantial evidence.”
Owens said “all death penalty cases are extremely expensive, whether they are reversed or not” and that the expense has to be borne “because the process is due under any constitutional interpretation you can have.”
Sanders said the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.
“I wish there were a better way to handle this,” Sanders said.
Ladenburg said, “We need more common sense on the court,” calling others at the table “insiders” and himself an “outsider.”
Hilyer agreed that death penalty cases are expensive but added: “It’s not like [the state] suppressed a confession.”
The luncheon’s second questioner, former lawyer Kaj Ahlburg of Port Angeles, was one of four individual plaintiffs on the losing side of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 5-4 decision upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act, which critics call “Obamacare” and mandates that all Americans have health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine.
Asked by Ahlburg whether they agreed with the decision and the degree to which courts should limit legislative action, Owens said the standard for the court to strike down laws “on constitutional grounds is very high,” but that the court should have ruled on the basis of whether the law was constitutional under Article 1’s commerce clause, the federal government’s main, though not sole, argument.
Said McCloud: “The courts did what courts do, which is decide cases on briefings and decide if it abides by the Constitution.”
Ladenburg said the court cannot be in a position to “veto” the legislative and executive branches of government.
Hilyer said cases should not be decided by “ideology” and took a swipe at Sanders.
“[Sanders] has an ideology,” Hilyer said. “I don’t think we want those considerations in our judiciary.”
Countered Sanders: “We should be addressing these things as a matter of principle, a matter of logic.”
Ballots will be mailed to voters Wednesday for the Aug. 7 primary.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.