West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen maroon Accord; plea bargain for repeat offender

In West Seattle Crime Watch so far today:

STOLEN MAROON ACCORD: Terra hopes you will be on the lookout for her car:

My car was stolen from the open garage/carport in front of our house – (3000 block of) Garlough Ave SW – sometime between 7:00 pm last night (7/31) and 10:00 am this morning (8/1). Maroon 1994 Honda Accord, licence plate AOE 4344, with a KEXP sticker on the rear bumper. Have filed a report with the police. I had hoped keeping it off the street with club on it would protect it, and it worked for a number of years, but I guess my luck finally ran out :(

And while we’re on the topic of auto theft:

PLEA BARGAIN FOR NICHOLAS WATSON: In a routine check of the online files in cases we’re tracking, we discovered that the most-recent cases against 36-year-old repeat offender Nicholas D. Watson have been resolved with a plea bargain. Documents indicate Watson pleaded guilty in two stolen-car cases; the case that resulted after he broke into a house in Upper Morgan was dropped. His sentence, in addition to credit for time he has already spent in jail (roughly 2 1/2 months cumulative in 7 bookings in the past year): Three to six months residential DOSA (Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative), for which he was ordered to report to a treatment facility outside the metro area.

22 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen maroon Accord; plea bargain for repeat offender"

  • Concerned August 1, 2018 (1:30 pm)

    So the charge of breaking and entering was dropped for a plea bargain?!  Am I reading that right? And 7 bookings in a year? And I see that he is doing the DOSA deal which so far as I remember has had zero success from the stories reported on WSB

    • Jethro Marx August 1, 2018 (1:57 pm)

      What you are describing does, indeed, sound like a plea deal. As to “zero success” I think you may have to dig deeper to find the success stories; “Man Completes Treatment, Doesn’t Rob Your House” would be an unusual headline.

    • CAM August 1, 2018 (2:12 pm)

      I don’t know the statistics on the success of the DOSA program, but I’d caution against drawing the conclusion that something is ineffective because you only hear about instances in which it did not achieve the desired results. Quite logically, if a person were to have success in the DOSA program their reoffense rate would significantly decrease and the media would not be reporting about the fact that they did not reoffend. By it’s nature, the media is most likely to report on situations in which the individual does reoffend. Therefore you’re drawing a conclusion based on some very shaky evidence. 

      • WSB August 1, 2018 (2:50 pm)

        I would be happy to report on someone for whom it did work. Unfortunately, haven’t yet heard of one – *in the small number of DOSA-sentenced defendants on whom we’ve reported* (and I would also caution the previous post’er not to assume that you can make a statistical judgment based on what you read here). I pulled four out of our archives using the search terms DOSA and sentence. Four people came up; three have reoffended (and are all still in custody), one has died.

        • Concerned August 1, 2018 (3:29 pm)

          I can tell you this. Bob Groeschell, who used to head the chemical dependency program at Seattle Central told his students on their first day of class that he didn’t want to discourage anyone there, but that approximately 9 out of 10 people who quit drugs /drinking did so without professional counseling.For a time some years ago I was licensed as a CPT and did an internship up north at a facility that specialized in court ordered treatment for young adults. I don’t recall one of them being sincere in trying to get clean /sober. In fact most of them failed the program in the short time I was there.   Also the staff seemed more worried about getting funding /grants than the task at hand. So to hear that all we need is more treatment facilities, all I think is that it will be great…. for the chemical dependency profession. Actual success, probably not so much. 

  • Senior August 1, 2018 (1:42 pm)

    Any one want to bet this guy will offend again?  No wonder folks keep reoffending there are no consequences

  • FedUpInAlki August 1, 2018 (2:22 pm)

    Prosecution in this city is a joke. With the backlog they have this seems pretty standard. This is why cops don’t care when your property gets stolen. They know that these people are let out, just to reoffend. Blame the city and our politicians, not the police.

  • Mark August 1, 2018 (2:28 pm)

    I wonder if an admitted thief who is kicked loose after serving just a few months can be sued in civil court. I’m sure it wouldn’t be inexpensive, but am curious if the victims can hire counsel to get their day in court? Anyone?

  • Senior August 1, 2018 (3:00 pm)

    Mark, imagine you could but ur correct expensive and doubt they have resources you could garnish or tap into, so unsure what the point would be

  • flimflam August 1, 2018 (4:17 pm)

    he will re-offend within a year i’d wager….

    • Dbl Dwn August 1, 2018 (5:40 pm)

      I’d wager by EOM.

  • Steve August 1, 2018 (5:42 pm)

    Well, That’s good to hear. If I commit a crime I will just say I am a drug addict and I want help. This way I shave years off my sentence.<sarcasm mode:disabled> These judges keep putting us back in danger slapping these criminals on the wrists. At a certain age well before your adult years you know the difference between right or wrong and some people are gonna say jail doesn’t rehabilitate or correct. Well, a person shouldn’t need correcting. A person would know the consequences of committing a crime and they still do it. That is a bad person. If it’s drug fueled, then again this person knew it was a bad decision to take drugs and still did it. We all wish the best for one another and want to function as a community/society but can’t let our compassion interfere with justice or proper punishment.

    • Jethro Marx August 1, 2018 (7:03 pm)

      I’m searching for a salient point and coming up short. What should we do? If we must choose between something that feels more like punishment and something more effective, in terms of recidivism, which would you like? Does cost matter? Because ranting about law and order is one thing but it gets complicated hectic quick.

    • wscommuter August 1, 2018 (10:25 pm)

      “The judges” don’t “keep putting us in danger”.  Please learn how the system works.  Judges are actually quite limited in sentencing ranges.  The legislature sets punishment ranges that judges are required to sentence within.  DOSA isn’t perfect – no program is.  But DOSA does have success stories – people who manage to get clean and turn their lives around.  If there wasn’t success, the program wouldn’t exist.  I find that folks who like to complain about the criminal justice system urging more draconian punishments tend to be the same folks who don’t want to pay the taxes necessary to fund a more robust criminal justice system.  

      • Concerned August 2, 2018 (4:48 am)

        Except that the judges seem to often low ball the sentencing to the minimum rather than the maximum. Kind  of like when we often hear for prosecutors asking for a certain bail amount, but the judge makes it much more lower than the recommendation.And as someone who works in government, you can’t tell me with a straight face that the city’s justice system is some well oiled machine. As someone who’s dealt with the justice system from tickets to jury duty, it’s a fat bogged down mess where it always seems to be some kind of break time. People have no idea the waste in government. They may think they do, but they have no idea. This city could cut a 1/3 of its employees and still function if they wanted to. 

        • wscommuter August 2, 2018 (8:28 am)

          You don’t know what you’re talking about when you say judges “low ball” sentences because you obviously don’t understand how narrow the ranges are.  I say this as a former prosecutor.  For example, the punishment range for a first offense drug dealing crime is between 21 and 27 months.  The judge has to sentence within that range.  And prosecutors don’t recommend “top” of the range except in the most egregious cases.  Judges typically impose what prosecutors ask for, but either way, you’re usually talking about a difference of a couple of months – not a big deal.   Likewise, if you did a study of bail hearings, you’d find that judges tend to follow the prosecutor’s recommendation on bail 90% of the time.  Not because they favor the state, but because generally there is agreement on what reasonable bail should be.  But to know these things, one would have to be educated, rather than just ranting here.  Likewise when you refer to “city employees” … these are individuals prosecuted in state court (as in King County Superior Court … by County prosecutors … following state law).  The city has nothing to do with this. Suggesting that you know something worthwhile because you went in for jury duty or paid your traffic ticket  demonstrates you don’t know what you don’t know.  

          • Concerned August 2, 2018 (10:02 am)

            So a judge, let’s say, gives a person 10 years probation for killing 4 people while drunk, because they “suffered from affluenza” isn’t an example of a judge using discretion and low balling the sentence?And WSB must be lucky, because the 90% of judges following the recommendation doesn’t seem to follow with cases I’ve read here. Neither with My northwest. ComAnd I know what I know because I worked in government and know the waste. You know too having worked in it. Stop pretending you don’t

          • Helenweales August 3, 2018 (12:39 am)

            @wscommuter-Sustained!

  • Ltfd August 1, 2018 (7:11 pm)

    Offshore island (jail) with tent shelter & delivered food. Cheaper than current model, and in-line with what our soldiers receive. Not cruel or unusual – deserved.

    • Jethro Marx August 2, 2018 (9:11 am)

      Islands, being surrounded by water, are always offshore. Also, this sounds more like a dystopian movie than a plan. If you don’t see this as unusual your metric may be skewed.

    • WSRob August 2, 2018 (10:34 am)

      McNeil Island…  Minus the tents.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNeil_Island

      • Swede. August 2, 2018 (12:38 pm)

        Couldn’t afford to keep that open, it was $14 million/year… Or roughly 1% of what they do have money for, the homeless. 

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