Victims in juvenile rape cases aren’t getting justice in King County

As the father of a preteen daughter, I constantly worry about how I can help to provide a safe and bright future for her as she grows up. As an elected official, I’m also called on to represent the region and make the best decisions I can to keep our youth safe. There are certain issues that I encounter at the Metropolitan King County Council where these two roles overlap, and I must think about how the decisions I make may affect my daughter and many others like her.  

In particular, I’ve had to grapple with what fathers and mothers and, more importantly, their teenage daughters are experiencing in the name of a King County policy known as “Zero Youth Detention.”

Recently, credible reports have emerged that the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office’s Juvenile Division is failing to properly manage juvenile sex offense cases. Sexually motivated crimes like rape and sexual assault have long-lasting impacts on the victims and their families, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, increased substance use and suicidal ideation, among others. Teenage girls who endure violent sexual assaults deserve to have their offender investigated and charged through our criminal legal system. 

But the KCPAO officials are failing them by choosing not to prosecute many underage sexual assault predators and not fulfilling their duty of bringing the victims the justice they need.

A KOMO News investigative report brought to light how poor the state of juvenile justice has become. King County is now prosecuting only 17% of juvenile sexual assault charges referred to them by law enforcement — the lowest rate in recent decades and down from 28% in 2019.  In one case, records show that juvenile prosecutors failed to take even basic investigative steps, including executing a search warrant on the alleged rapist’s phone for text and pictures of the alleged rape. Juvenile Division Chief Jimmy Hung, who does not dispute the 17% filing rate, minimized this statistic by describing this historically low prosecution rate as “encouraging” in another KOMO news story — an assessment that concerns many who work with victims of sexual assault.

Former King County Sexual Assault Resource Center CEO Mary Ellen Stone publicly called for more transparency around the Juvenile Division’s practices, speaking specifically to a concern about the misuse of a classification called “Statutory Referral Only.” KCSARC’s new CEO, Kate Krug, recently said that “ … the majority of [Juvenile Division] cases that have been sentenced have plead down from a sex offense to a non-sex offense.” Unfortunately, this suggests the Juvenile Division charging statistics, already at record lows for sexual assault, could be even lower than we know.

In the KOMO story, former King County deputy prosecutor Julie Kays asserted that she is observing a lack of will to prosecute sexual assault cases in the Juvenile Division. In recent years, King County leadership, unfortunately, has focused on the goal of “zero youth detention,” despite the well-established fact that 15-17-year-old criminals can be every bit as dangerous and violent as adults. 

In order to achieve this goal, the council’s governing majority has moved to create programs like Restorative Community Pathways, where juveniles arrested for many crimes never see a judge and are sent to meet with community-based nonprofit groups, with little oversight. This is just one example of how King County’s experimental juvenile justice approach is coming at the expense of public safety.

King County could face scrutiny and a potential investigation from outside groups, including the U.S. Department of Justice. As a former federal prosecutor, I know that the Prosecutor’s Office is walking a dangerously fine line, but it’s critical to remember that survivors of sexual assault have civil rights, too.

Just last week, the Citizen Action Defense Fund sent a letter formally requesting that the civil rights divisions of the Washington Attorney General’s Office and the Justice Department formally investigate the alleged violations of the civil rights of survivors of sexual assault and failures to meet constitutional and statutory duties. Although the County Code prohibits sexual assault referrals to RCP, the legal fund received information through public disclosure that reflects at least 20 individuals accused of sexual assault had been diverted to RCP. This diversion of sentencing and conviction is deeply troubling because there is no court oversight and little accountability.

Such similarly low sexual-assault charging rates have attracted investigations in other jurisdictions. In 2014, a nearly 17% sexual assault charging rate ended the career of an elected prosecutor in Montana’s Missoula County after the DOJ determined that low sexual-assault charging rates reflected training and supervisory issues, violations of professional codes of conduct and a callous disregard for victims of rape.

In an era where we’re taught to believe survivors of sexual assault, in a city as progressive as Seattle, it’s hard to imagine that juvenile rape survivors must fight, often unsuccessfully, to be recognized by King County Juvenile Division prosecutors.

The KCPAO must be far more transparent with community leaders about why they are choosing not to prosecute underage sexual assault perpetrators. Based on the data I’ve been provided, it appears that the PAO’s efforts are slanted toward protecting the offenders instead of working as an advocate for underage girls reporting these crimes. 

I think being a father has made me a better, more compassionate leader. I work hard to make the right decisions for my daughter and all the parents and children I represent. Girls who report sexual assault are brave and deserve to be believed and have their offender fully investigated and charged. And although there’s nothing that can ever make up for the trauma engendered by sexual assault, victims deserve to have the King County Prosecutor’s Office make its very best effort to bring sexual predators to justice.