December News
Case, Staff, & DREAM News
Case News
Over the last several months, our office has ramped up representation of immigrants illegally detained by ICE by filing petitions of habeas corpus seeking their release. Many detainees have been in the U.S. for decades and were arrested, without notice and in violation of their due process rights, when they reported for regular check-ins with ICE. To date, we have filed over 60 petitions and obtained release for more than 20 people, with the remaining petitions pending in court and more being filed every week. We are also coordinating with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and the Seattle Clemency Project to assist additional detainees, and we recently worked with the U.S. District Court and U.S. Attorney’s Office to implement procedures to expedite judicial review of petitions.
Among other cases, the office represented a Nicaraguan citizen with mental illness who had obtained deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture after suffering previous torture at the hands of that government. When we were appointed, he had been held in ICE custody for over a year as the U.S. government sought his deportation to third countries where he had never been. The District Court ordered him released on bond, and he has been reunited with his sister, a U.S. citizen. The Court also held that “the Government’s practice of third-country removal paired with imprisonment is intended to be punitive and thus violates due process.” Baltodano v. Bondi, No. CV25-1958-RSL (W.D. Wash. Dec. 4, 2025).
Staff News
Colin Fieman, the Federal Defender for this office since May 2022, retired from his position and this office.
Colin joined the Tacoma office in 2002 after stints as a prosecutor with the New York District Attorney’s Office, as staff attorney for the University of Georgia Law School’s Legal Aid and Defender Clinic, and two years as director of the public defender’s office in Yap, one of four states that comprise the Federated States of Micronesia. He was named this office’s Senior Litigator in 2017. The Ninth Circuit appointed Colin as the Federal Defender after Michael Filipovic’s retirement on February 28, 2022.
Earlier this year, Colin announced that he would not serve a second term as Federal Defender and is moving on to a position as partner with the Pacifica Law Group. Colin will be remembered as a litigator who doggedly pursued justice for his clients. Among his trial successes were an acquittal for a former correctional officer who was wrongly accused of aiding and abetting a drug conspiracy and avoiding a de facto life sentence for a client accused of his third bank robbery. He was also responsible for coordinating a nationwide effort to defend individuals caught up in the FBI’s running of a child pornography website.
Colin is the rare litigator who is adept both at relating to juries and at presenting complex legal theories to the Court orally and in writing. He will perhaps be best remembered in his litigator role for his sense of humor in the face of prosecutorial power, his equanimity as he handled tough cases with tough facts, and the care in which he protected his clients’ rights.
In his role as the head of the office, perhaps his greatest contributions were his strong commitment to supporting an appropriate work/life balance and to fostering workplace equity. He navigated the difficult task of returning the office to normalcy in the aftermath of the pandemic, all while dealing with matters such as the uncertain budgetary situation and the remodeling of the Seattle office. He also worked with the Court, U.S. Probation, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to ensure that the interests of our clients would be considered and advanced. Most recently, he spearheaded this office’s habeas work representing individuals unlawfully detained by ICE, which has resulted the release of dozens of individuals as of this writing. He was a major force in this office’s dedication to criminal justice.
Colin was a good friend to the office. His dedication to public defense will be sorely missed, but we find solace in the fact that he will continue the fight for justice in the civil arena.
Our office celebrated Colin and the winter holidays with a gathering in Tacoma.
DREAM News
T was in DREAM in 2021 and 2022. Although the beginning of her time in DREAM was rocky, T opened up to help and committed to change, graduating 18 months after entering the program. She is now thriving, happy, healthy, winning professional awards, and, with some of the tools she learned in DREAM, helping others. She wrote to us recently, providing an update and expressing gratitude for the program: “What DREAM gave me was not just a fresh start, but a perspective that allows me to lead with empathy, patience, and purpose.” It is a joy to read her latest: “I’m genuinely happy with where I am today, and I have a future I’m excited about.”
January News
Case, Staff, DREAM, & Intern News
Case News
Client Is Acquitted at Trial
After a five-day trial, VR was acquitted of all charges. In June 2025, he was charged with four counts of assaulting federal officers with a deadly and dangerous weapon (a truck and trailer)—one count for each federal officer—and in two instances of inflicting bodily injury. In an effort to serve an administrative immigration warrant, federal agents drove three cars directly at VR, a landscaper, who was towing a trailer with a riding mower. The truck scraped the side of the first car, and then the agent driving the car decided to “gun it” and ram his car into the trailer. The truck drove around the second car and unsuccessfully tried to drive around the third car. During the course of the trial, jurors saw aerial video footage of the collision, as well as video taken from a cell phone in a car that trailed behind VR’s truck. The jury deliberated for approximately an hour before delivering a resounding not-guilty verdict. VR and his family were overjoyed and relieved that the jury understood this was a terrible accident. He was supported every day by his fiancée and two sons, his pastor Chris Hoke, and numerous members of the Underground Ministries community. The defense team, consisting of a Seattle Investigator, Seattle Paralegals Janet Stanton, Suzie Strait, and Marissa Lock, and Seattle AFDs Mukund Rathi and Colleen Fitzharris, among others, worked tirelessly to represent VR and are overjoyed by the outcome of trial.
Case Dismissed
When our client accidentally drove across the border to Canada before turning around a moment later, the government charged him with a misdemeanor offense, asked for him to be detained, and sought to forfeit his car and all his belongings. But when the case was set for trial, the government dismissed all charges. Our client can now thankfully put this experience behind him. Our client was represented by Seattle AFD Greg Murphy and assisted by a Seattle Investigator and Seattle Paralegals Janet Stanton and Thomas Tallerico.
A judge granted our client protection from torture in his home country, but the government refused to release him from immigration detention while they looked for another country that would accept him. With the assistance of the FPD, our client petitioned a federal court to order him released. His request was granted. Our client is finally back home, safe, and with his family.
Our client’s first petition for release was denied because the government assured the Court that they would deport him soon. When he remained detained more than six months later, our client petitioned a second time. This time, the judge concluded that the government’s assurances were not enough. Our client was released and is back with his family.
The office represented a man purportedly from Jamaica who had moved to the U.S. as a child and had no documents showing his Jamaican citizenship. He was arrested and held in ICE detention for more than six months even though the Jamaican consulate refused to recognize him as a citizen. The government tried to claim it could put him on a charter plane to Jamaica without travel documents, but the Court ruled that his detention had been unlawful and ordered his immediate release.
S won his immigration habeas case with the help of attorney Alan Zarky and Tacoma Paralegal Alma Coria. However, because of various mental health and memory issues, S needed assistance in getting back to Portland, where he was to re-enter the residential treatment program he had been in before ICE detention. MSW Intern Sam Hibberd had planned to meet with S to evaluate his needs, but Magistrate Judge Peterson ruled very quickly (two days after S’s reply was filed), requiring quicker action. Sam jumped on the issue, learned about the resources available through AIDNW and their times of appearing outside the detention facility, communicated with the treatment program, obtained bus and train schedules, made herself available on her day off, and otherwise facilitated S’s transportation. AIDNW transported S to the bus station and stayed with him until the bus departed. He arrived safely that evening. Great job, Sam!
Mitigation Specialist Kelly Trujillo, LICSW, worked tirelessly alongside Tacoma AFD Linsday McCaslin and Seattle Investigator Mahkaea Jackson-Sams to obtain psychological and psychiatric expert testing and reports to be utilized in a young client's mitigation and sentencing. Given our client's mental health struggles in detention, MSW Intern Tate Hodson provided brief supportive counseling leading up to his sentencing. Not only did these efforts help secure a sentence lower than the guidelines, but the team’s strong relationship with the client also helped ensure the proper diagnosis and treatment recommendations were in place to support his long-term stability moving forward. Our client was grateful, expressing, “I have never felt so cared for in my life.” He also expressed a desire to become a social worker in the future, noting his desire to support others who are struggling once he feels more secure in his own healing and recovery.
Staff News
Mitigation Specialist Kelly Trujillo, LICSW, was invited to speak about her work at the University of Washington's School of Social Work. Kelly provided an overview of the Federal Public Defender's office, our mission and activities, and the role of mitigation in resolving criminal cases. While not all mitigation specialists are social workers, this field of study lends itself well to the unique goal of contextualizing an individual within a person-in-environment framework, which is essential to the study of social work and understanding how someone came to be where they are today. UW MSW interns Sam Hibberd and Tate Hodson shared their experiences interning with our office, and MSW students were excited to learn about ways their specialized education might be used within the criminal legal system.
DREAM News
An FPD client was accepted to the DREAM deferred prosecution program. The client was charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances—a charge spanning a long period of time and carrying a mandatory minimum prison sentence. The client worked with Tacoma Paralegal Amy Strickling, Tacoma Investigator Mike Stortini, and First Assistant Corey Endo and Tacoma AFD Becky Fish to apply for the DREAM program. While on bond and working on this application, the client also persevered through multiple personal difficulties. The client’s commitment to working with treatment providers, the defense team, and the Court, even in the face of difficulties in relapse, ultimately persuaded the DREAM Executive Committee that the client should have the chance to join the program and continue in treatment rather than serve a years-long prison term.
Intern News
Please welcome our legal interns:
Please welcome our undergrad intern:
