Rhodes Less Traveled

It won’t come as a surprise if local law enforcement officials use this past weekend’s murder of four Lakewood police officers to buttress their argument that the Kitsap County Sheriff and Prosecutor’s Offices shouldn’t have to absorb the budget cuts the county is imposing on them.

County Prosecutor Russ Hauge, whose office has been instructed to slash $800,000 from its budget, has been emphatic for months that the cutbacks threaten public safety by forcing him to drop charges against offenders who might otherwise have been successfully prosecuted.

“Currently we have two serious homicides charged,” Hauge recently told the Kitsap commissioners. “There are at least two more under investigation, and a potential two-count vehicular homicide to deal with. Each serious case needs the constant attention of at least two lawyers and one legal assistant. And along the way, all members of the Criminal Division management team will be engaged.”

With so much manpower tied up handling these more serious cases, Hauge says his office simply can’t afford to pursue all the lesser offenses that need attention, which could result in dangerous criminals being left on the street rather than behind bars.

In some ways the Lakewood tragedy bears this out. The prime suspect in the killings, Maurice Clemmons, has an extensive criminal history including at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and eight or more felony charges in Washington.

Most disturbingly, he’s repeatedly been released from custody over the objections of those who recognized the threat he posed.

Clemmons, in fact, had been released from jail, apparently with a grudge against law enforcement, after being arrested on a charge of raping a 12-year-old just six days before the shooting. Which raises the specter of such a person falling through the cracks in Kitsap County if they can’t be prosecuted or incarcerated for budgetary reasons.

At the same time, the fact that Clemmons was repeatedly paroled, commuted and otherwise overlooked sounds more like a case of gross incompetence, poor judgment and outright stupidity than anything else — which shouldn’t happen here or anywhere else regardless of budget constraints.

Clemmons’ most recent discharge from custody in Pierce County, for example, had nothing to do with that community’s inability or unwillingness to prosecute him. It was the fault of a judge who set bail so low that Clemmons was able to afford it despite a list of prior convictions that stretched into double digits. While out on bail, he was ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet — which he proceeded to cut off almost immediately and go on his merry way.

Make no mistake: Maurice Clemmons is an animal who long ago forfeited the right to live in a free society, and anyone with a scintilla of intelligence recognized it long before his evil manifested itself on Sunday morning. That he was allowed to roam free stalking police officers instead of making brooms in a state prison can be laid at the feet of a procession of law enforcement officials incapable of doing the job for which they were hired or elected, not a shortage of resources. And presumably we’re not making the same mistake here in Kitsap County with similarly dangerous felons.

But if we are, budget cuts won’t excuse it.