National Response Corporation crews work to clean up motor oil on Interstate 5 after an oil tanker overturned near milepost 85 July 3 in Centralia.
After a tanker crashed and spilled around 3,000 gallons of oil on Interstate 5 in July, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said he received an offer from a Seattle prosecutor to expedite the blood testing in the ensuing DUI investigation, bypassing other cases on the often months-long Washington State Patrol crime lab waiting list.
Meyer said this prompted him to inquire: Why does this case warrant special treatment over other ongoing DUI cases?
“… I cannot help but be somewhat annoyed that a case such as this garners the special attention that it has. Where was this attention for the defendant that had his minor child with him in the vehicle? Or the driver that nearly hit another motorist head-on? Or the driver with multiple DUIs in their history who presents a clear danger to the law abiding motorists on the roadways?” reads a letter in part that Meyer sent to Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste on Monday.
In the letter, Meyer wrote that he was contacted by Miriam Norman, a traffic safety resource prosecutor with the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, offering to put a rush on blood testing on the tanker’s driver, Jeffery T. Anderson, 53, of Yelm. Meyer said he turned down the offer. However, he told The Chronicle, the results came back shortly after — suggesting that a rush was put on the results despite his requests otherwise.
Prosecutors have since filed a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence against Anderson.
In email correspondence between Meyer and Norman provided to The Chronicle, Norman wrote to Meyer in part: “If you need any help, please let me know what I can do to assist your prosecution. If you need the blood rushed, I know the Tox lab would be willing to do that for you based on the severity of the facts involved (crash/CMV driver).”
Meyer responded: “This case was dismissed because we are awaiting blood results. Frankly, I would rather NOT have the results rushed. I would rather have the legislature/Governor’s office fund the lab at proper levels to prevent this backlog.”
Finally, Norman responded with: “I 100% agree on the backlog needing to be addressed. Let me know if you need anything moving forward.”
In an email to The Chronicle, Norman said that when Meyer requested that the testing not be rushed, she left it at that.
“While I am happy to offer help, I cannot do anything outside of (an elected prosecutor’s or deputy prosecutor’s) wishes on a case,” Norman wrote, indicating that she agrees with Meyer that the toxicology lab is “woefully underfunded and over-worked.”
An influx in marijuana-related DUIs has led to a significant increase in blood draws, leading to the backlog, Norman wrote.
“Last year, we were disappointed when the Toxicology Lab was not properly funded. The backlog affects our safety. It is a community safety issue on our roadways. It affects prosecutors’ ability to prosecute cases and hold offenders accountable. It also affects defendants who need early intervention and treatment as their cases are not timely filed and they cannot receive proper chemical dependency evaluations without the tox report due to the backlog. I agreed with Mr. Meyer then that the toxicology lab needs to be funded, and I absolutely agree with him now that the Toxicology Laboratory needs to be funded now,” she wrote.
After the crash, WSP arrested Anderson, saying there were signs on scene that he was driving under the influence.
Shortly after, prosecutors moved to dismiss the charge with the intention of re-filing it if blood results indicated Anderson was under the influence at the time of the crash. It’s not an uncommon practice in DUI investigations, said Meyer, citing wait times often reaching five to six months for results to come back from the WSP crime lab.
“In order to protect a defendant’s right to a speedy trial, but still hold the people accountable, often times we’ll be forced to dismiss the case, wait for the blood results to come back, and then re-file a case,” Meyer told The Chronicle.
Defendants have the right to have a trial within 90 days of arraignment, a timeframe that’s often not possible due to extensive backlog and understaffing at the WSP lab.
Despite the fact that Meyer turned down the offer for the results to be rushed through the process, he said they received the blood results about a week later anyway.
“So my question for Chief Batiste of the state patrol is why? What sets this case apart and who made this request?” he said. Included in the letter is a request for all communication involving WSP employees that reference or request any expedite the testing process.
“I would like to determine who requested the special attention be paid to this case and why,” the letter reads.
Meyer praised the state crime lab, saying their work is well done while “under immense pressure, a lack of qualified personnel resulting from inadequate funding.”
Moses Garcia, a traffic safety resource prosecutor (TSRP) based in Seattle, said there are certain elements that might cause blood samples to be bumped up to the front of the line. It’s not a process that can be started with a simple request, but rather, has to meet certain criteria.
Garcia noted that he wasn’t familiar with details in the situation involving Anderson, and answered questions about the situation after being provided a synopsis by a Chronicle reporter.
In the incident allegedly involving Anderson, Garcia said one of the elements that might have resulted in the sample being expedited is that the suspect is a truck driver — an occupation that often brings out-of-state residents to an area. If charges aren’t filed in a timely manner in such a situation, it’s not uncommon for the suspect to leave the area and highly complicate the situation.
Garcia noted that he wasn’t sure where Anderson lived.
In a follow-up email to The Chronicle, Garcia said he confirmed that the blood results in Anderson’s case were rushed through law enforcement chain-of-command.
“Under state law all prosecutors, law enforcement, and medical examiners have the authority to request the assistance of the toxicology lab in their investigations. While we tend to focus on the prosecutor’s role, the law enforcement side has just as much authority to influence blood processing. In many cases, they are the only ones with sufficient facts to support such a decision. Based on their request, the tox lab processed the request in accord with their policy for such requests,” he wrote.
Anderson was uninjured following the crash at around 4:22 a.m. July 3 at milepost 85.5 on I-5, just south of the Thurston County line. The truck left the roadway to the right, striking a guardrail then crossing all three lanes of traffic before overturning.
Traffic was backed up for miles as all lanes of northbound I-5 were closed for a stretch of time, spilling over into the Twin Cities and congesting many main thoroughfares within city limits.
Around 3,000 gallons of oil were spilled, with much of it spilling off the roadway and prompting cleanup efforts that lasted weeks afterward. Although officials with the State Department of Ecology noted none of the oil hit a water source that would cause it to spread and harm environment or wildlife, it still would require large amounts of soil and earth to be excavated.
