Washington v. Tracer
Annotate this CaseSeveral issues arose after a special deputy prosecuting attorney failed to attend a pretrial hearing and a superior court judge appointed a local defense attorney to take her place. The State appealed the resulting judgment and sentence and the trial court's refusal to vacate its appointment. The Court of Appeals found the appointment was improper and vacated the defendant's guilty plea. Affirming the Court of Appeals' holdings that the State has a right to appeal and that a superior court may appoint an attorney to replace any special prosecuting attorney, the Supreme Court found that the appointed attorney in this case was not qualified to serve as a prosecuting attorney due to a conflict of interest. In addition, the Court affirmed the Court of Appeals' holdings that the "de facto official" doctrine could not save the attorney's appointment and that remand of the case did not violate the double jeopardy clause. The Court reversed the appellate court's holding that on remand, the case be tried to a different judge, noting that nothing in the record of this case suggested the judge displayed "animosity or bias, but simply demonstrated frustration at [the special deputy prosecuting attorney's] repeated failure to appear."
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.