Despite months of collaboration, the King County Department of Public Defense (DPD) has distanced itself from Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans’ new therapeutic court. The public defenders think Evans’ system, christened “connection court,” punishes repeat, low-level crime offenders and doesn’t do anything to solve the root problems of crime. That’s the same problem they have with the current system.
Seattle Municipal Court hasn’t had a community court, a therapeutic court where people can be connected with services rather than a jail sentence, since Republican Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison killed it in 2023. On the campaign trail last year, all the Seattle city attorney candidates vowed to revive it (even Davison proposed a fucked up reimagined “drug court”).
In a matter of 10 months, Seattle City Attorney Erika has followed through on her promises. Sort of. Connection court, kicked off this week and will hear cases every other Wednesday, giving people same-day access to service connections. If they complete those “engagements” assigned by the court, their case will be dismissed.
Evans’ connection court has strict eligibility requirements, including a three-month period where anyone in connection court cannot commit another crime or they’ll be kicked from the program and have their case prosecuted the normal way. In another new program, Evans will also recommend “aggravated” sentences for repeat offenders.
As a candidate, Evans called for an “expansive” new community court that “reduces crime and recidivism” and allows “people who commit quality of life crimes to participate in the system.” Her platform didn’t mention recommending harsher sentences for repeat low-level offenders. When she took office, she said she would work with DPD on the new vision. Those conversations fell apart back in August, according to Katie Hurley, special counsel for criminal policy and practice at DPD.
“The current eligibility criteria for connection court, I would not characterize as ‘expansive,’” Hurley says, referring to Evans’ campaign platform. “I would characterize them as restrictive… more restrictive than we saw in the last iteration of community court.”
While Evans’ connection court bars anyone with serious criminal histories from entering the program (second degree assault convictions from the last two years, any rape or murder convictions), it also institutes a 90-day jurisdiction period where someone cannot break the law again. If they do, they’ll get booted out of connection court and have their case prosecuted normal-style. This is tough for people without homes who may receive criminal trespass charges for sleeping outside (connection court currently doesn’t connect people with shelter options, but Evans says she’s talking to Mayor Katie Wilson to set that up).
According to Hurley, the last iteration of Seattle’s community court had jurisdiction periods of 14 days or 28 days—long enough for a person to complete their “engagement,” or the task they were assigned by the community court, but not so long that they’d spend three months in purgatory with an open case.
Jenna Robert, criminal division chief in the City Attorney’s Office, explained that 90 days will give people time to finish their “engagements,” since connection court goes further than “check-the-box engagements.” Robert used an example of a mental health appointment—satisfying the engagement requirement would mean not just scheduling the appointment, but going to it. “The kind of thing we’re looking at is that extra step,” Robert says.
The 90-day jurisdiction period was the sticking point for DPD.
In mid-August, after months of discussions with Evans’ office and “shortly before the court had been initially scheduled to launch,” Hurley says, the CAO included the 90-day thing out of nowhere. DPD then distanced themselves from any association with connection court.
According to Evans, DPD wanted the jurisdiction period to be one day. “How can you think you can get someone what they need in one day?” Evans says.
Hurley clarified that DPD wanted the jurisdictional period to end and the connection court case to be finished once someone completed their engagements.
“If they were able to design exactly how they want it’s not exactly that, but it’s something better than not having it at all,” Evans says of DPD.
The other problem for DPD is Evans’ new High-Priority Repeat Offenses (HiPRO) program, which punishes anyone who has committed three crimes in three months or six crimes in six months by recommending “aggravated” sentences. It sounds a lot like her Republican predecessor Davison’s High-Utilizer Initiative, but Evans says it’s different. For one thing, unlike Davison’s “it’s not a list,” she says.
HiPRO “looks at conduct across a three-month-span,” Evans says. It also places special emphasis on crimes that impact businesses (trespassing, theft) and vehicle prowls. Those HiPRO cases aren’t eligible for connection court and face harsher recommended sentences.
But aggravated sentences will only occur after “we’ve given opportunity after opportunity,” Evans says.
“We’re talking about adding a slight aggravator to try to address that we’ve continued to give you these opportunities, and you’re not taking advantage of any of these off ramps,” Robert says. “We’re acknowledging that you’re disproportionately impacting the community, and we’re asking for that aggravator.”
Evans says it could look like a few extra days in jail, but it’s “not set in stone.”
For the DPD, this seems a lot like the current system: punishing repeat low-level crime offenders and not solving any of the root problems that cause crime. Those in HiPRO “are exactly the people who’ve been failed by the traditional system,” she says. Persistent low level behaviors that conventional prosecution hasn’t curbed are “precisely what connection court should be addressing and responding to.” Thinking added jail time can help is a sign of prosecutoritis.
Some of those people will still make it through connection court through “prosecutorial discretion,” Evans says. Or, they’ll be funneled into one of the numerous pre-file diversion programs. DPD remains skeptical.
While Evans is proud to have stood up connection court so quickly, she hopes it can expand. The current version “is not enough yet,” she says.
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