Case, Office, Community, & Intern News
Case News
In 2022, after trial, our client was sentenced to probation for an offense she committed three years earlier. The prosecution appealed, and the Court of Appeals decided the sentence was too low. The Court of Appeals ordered the district court to resentence our client, taking into account everything that had occurred since the commission of the crime.
This month, the Court once again sentenced our client to probation. The Court noted her heartfelt acceptance of responsibility and the absence of any serious violations in the last six years of supervision. Congratulations to our client! She is grateful to her community for their support.
Our client was represented by Seattle AFDs Nancy Tenney, Vicki Lai, Annie Wagner, and Gregory Murphy, Chief Investigator Stacey Brownstein, Chief Paralegal Patricia Stordeur, and Seattle Paralegal Thomas Tallerico.
Our client was charged with attempted distribution of classified documents to China. He was discharged from the military in 2019 after suffering a psychotic break. He believed a chip had been implanted in his head by the government and the chip communicated with him over a vast network. He initially responded to treatment but stopped taking his meds and the delusions came back. Alarmed, his parents attempted to civilly commit him, but he was found not to be a danger and was released. He went to China to tell them about the “chip technology” and, in order to gain credibility, he passed classified information to the Chinese government. He lived in Hong Kong for 2.5 years and returned to the United States believing he would be hired by the FBI to work with the “chip program.” He was arrested at the airport. Then he was found to be not competent and sent to a medical facility for restoration. He responded well to medications and regained competency. Embarrassed by his actions while acting under his delusions, he pled guilty. At sentencing, the government recommended seven years of custody. The defense recommended time served (25 months), and the Court imposed a sentence of 48 months. While the client and his defense team certainly hoped for a better outcome, the client felt at peace with the sentence and respected the Court’s judgment, his treatment, and the work of his defense team, which included Chief Investigator Stacey Brownstein, former Social Worker Amanda Merfeld, Seattle Paralegal Natalya Kim, and Senior Litigator Dennis Carroll. Sometimes we don’t hit home runs but instead have smaller impacts on people’s lives.
Judge Lasnik sentenced our client to time served (four days) and three years of supervised release for mail fraud, while facing a Guideline range of 27–33 months. The government argued for a 15-month sentence, and Probation recommended a 14-month sentence. The team of Chief Investigator Stacey Brownstein, Seattle Investigator Chevy Echeverria, Seattle AFD Colleen Fitzharris, and Seattle Paralegals Natalya Kim and Marissa Lock spent many hours talking with our client and learning about her life. We witnessed her tremendous personal growth. The valuable context about the client’s life helped explain why she made such terrible choices and why additional incarceration was unnecessary. Post sentencing, our client expressed relief, gratitude, and a desire to keep moving forward in a positive direction.
Our client survived being shot only to find themselves charged with being a felon in possession a gun, which was found in their car while they were being transported to the hospital. Having spent almost a decade focusing on working, being a good parent, and developing positive connections within their community, they faced a new felony charge and the possibility of spending years in custody. They didn’t let any of this get them off-track. They kept working, spending time with their child and using their time on pretrial release to strengthen their relationship with the family members who had been most supportive of them “getting on the right path” in the first place. This steady determination resulted in a time-served sentence. Congrats to our client for their amazing work!
Tacoma Paralegal Amy Strickling and Tacoma AFD Rebecca Fish helped a client earn a non-custodial sentence on a serious felony charge. The government investigated the client and believed the charged conduct spanned several years. The client was dealing with an emerging medical condition and a serious addiction at the time of the charged conduct. The defense team acted quickly to gather and prepare a mitigation package, which led to a resolution without a mandatory minimum charge. Unfortunately, during the months that followed, the client’s health deteriorated. The defense team, along with the client and their family, presented information and arguments at sentencing regarding the client’s struggles at the time of the charged conduct, the client’s sincere remorse, and the client’s significant medical needs. The defense team further presented information regarding the Bureau of Prisons’ severe understaffing, including the dangerous lack of needed medical staff and resources. Although both the government and Probation recommended prison sentences for the client, the Court considered all the materials and information presented and sentenced the client to five years of probation with a period of home detention. The outcome allows the client to be held accountable and to pay restitution while also receiving needed medical care.
Because of the increase in ICE detentions and re-detentions, the FPD, in coordination with immigrant rights organizations, has increased their representation of detained immigrants—some of whom have lived in this country for decades—by filing immigration habeas corpus petitions. The petitions primarily challenge the immigration detention by ICE of individuals with final removal orders past the six-month presumptive reasonable period in Zadvydas v. Davis, where removal is not reasonably foreseeable. To date, the FPD has filed 25 petitions, with six favorable decisions thus far, with more filings challenging individuals’ indefinite detention forthcoming.
Office News
This past month, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of our office with two events. On October 8, we hosted an anniversary reception at our newly renovated Seattle main office, with more than a hundred guests from the Western District court community. And on October 23, the M3 Federal Bar Association and District Court sponsored a panel discussion with Federal Defender Colin Fieman and former Defenders Mike Filipovic and Tom Hillier, facilitated by the Honorable Robert S. Lasnik. Topics included the history of the Criminal Justice Act, which created the federal public defender system; the evolution of criminal defense practice in the district; and the challenges posed to the constitution and the right to counsel by the Trump administration.
In 1975, Irwin H. Schwartz became the first Federal Public Defender for Western Washington. When it opened, the office had three assistant defenders and three additional staff, and in its first year represented 328 clients. The Tacoma branch office opened soon after, when the federal courthouse there occupied the second floor of the historic downtown Tacoma Post Office. In 1982, Tom Hillier became head of the office. That same year, the Criminal Justice Act transferred the power to appoint FPDs from district courts to the circuit court to help insulate defenders from judges before whom they regularly appear and to enhance the independence of the defense function. In 1986, Tom opened a branch office in Anchorage and headed it for five years, until the Alaska caseload was sufficient to sustain its own office. Mike Filipovic followed Tom in 2014, and among other achievements Mike was a leader in the defense community during COVID, helping to set the standard for maintaining client representation and court operations during a pandemic. In 2022, Colin Fieman became the fourth Federal Defender. He has served with the office for more than 23 years.
The legal and societal landscapes have changed dramatically since 1975 when we began; the numbers and types of crimes charged are different, and basic rights are more at risk. But the mission remains the same—to ensure that anyone against whom the government’s immense power and resources are brought to bear in a criminal case gets compassionate and zealous representation and the full measure of protections they are guaranteed.
Community News
The M3 Federal Bar Association for the Western District of Washington hosted Constitution Day for the fifth-grade classes of Larchmont Elementary School at the Tacoma Courthouse on October 30, 2025. Originally designed as a way to recognize Constitution Day each September, the event brings local fifth graders to federal courthouses to participate in a mock trial; meet judges, attorneys, court staff, and other legal professionals; tour the courthouse; and learn more about the criminal legal system.
After a visit by Judge Cartwright to the school, the two classes visited the courthouse and participated in a mock trial and tour of the building the following week. Each student had an opportunity to participate in the scripted mock trial in the case of People v. Pat Morton. Students performed as judges, bailiffs, defense counsel, prosecutors, witnesses, and jurors. At the end of the trial, the jurors voted to acquit or to find the defendant guilty. In both trials, the jury was not able to reach a unanimous verdict. The students also toured the courthouse and attended a presentation by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Thank you to Seattle AFDs Sara Brin and Colleen Fitzharris, a Seattle Investigator, Seattle Paralegal Marissa Lock, and Tacoma AFD Lindsay McCaslin for volunteering and helping students with the mock trial.
Intern News
On October 21, Chief Appellate Attorney Vicki Lai, current Legal Intern Kendra Kalaf, and former Legal Intern Kyla Choi tabled for the FPD at UW Law School’s Public Interest Fair. They met with an enthusiastic group of law students interested in learning more about federal public defense, the work of the FPD, and extern/intern opportunities at the FPD.
Please welcome our fall quarter undergrad intern:
