West Seattle Crime Watch: Smash-grab burglar to be sentenced

A once-big case we lost track of has resulted in a guilty plea, and the sentencing is set for tomorrow. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office reports that Stephen Hayes Kirk (left) – charged in the series of smash-and-grab burglaries that bedeviled local businesses last year – pleaded guilty in March to eight counts of 2nd-degree burglary and 1 count of 2nd-degree attempted burglary. We last reported on him in September, when he was charged with burglaries at Luciano’s Pizza and Delridge Uptown Espresso, added to previous charges in Burien cases, though he was suspected in others (here’s our coverage of the burglary wave last summer). His sentencing is set for tomorrow afternoon before King County Superior Court Judge Mariane Spearman (1 pm, W-965), with a sentencing range of 51 to 68 months in prison.

dsa May 5, 2011 (8:11 pm)

At 51 months min in the can, how long is it until he could make probation? I am just curious because four years seems about right.

lostcoyote May 6, 2011 (11:20 am)

More creeps crusing West Seattle.

WTF May 6, 2011 (11:38 am)

Good god. He just looks “stupid”

WS commuter May 6, 2011 (11:57 am)

There is no “probation” in WA since we went to determinate sentencing in 1980. He can concievably earn “good time” which could hypothetically reduce his sentence by no more than one-third. So, in other words, even if he only recieves the minimum sentence of 51 months, and even if he is a perfect, model prisoner and does everything he’s told in prison, he will still serve at least 34 months; if he has any infractions, etc., he will serve more, up to the maximum number of months sentenced. But he will never appear before any probation board – it doesn’t exist anymore except for those few remaining prisoners sentenced before 1980, who still are in prison.