Rusk and Sanders represented a young African American man who was beat up by an officer at a Black Lives Matter rally. On the eve of trial, the city, under protest, turned over more than 300 pages of Brady material, but it did not end there. After a brief continuance and as trial restarted, Seattle PD again disgorged a second enormous chunk of Brady material. Rusk & Sanders moved for dismissal under CrRLJ 8.3(b) for the failure to timely disclose the Brady material, but Judge Shadid found that the material in question was not Brady material, but was admissible to show bias. Despite his interesting ruling, Judge Shadid did find a violation and berated the City Attorney and her office. One count of assault was dismissed at halftime and the jury found their client not guilty on the second count of assault (involving the corrupt officer), one count of obstruction and one count of resisting arrest. The jury returned their verdict in 15 minutes after a 15-day trial and wanted Mr. Rusk’s client to know, in reading the verdict directly to him, that they did not support the prosecution to any degree.
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