Green River trial could be nation's biggest ~*~ Xiomie ~*~

Dan Satterberg, the county prosecutor's chief of staff, said the trial of Gary Ridgway could be the most complex criminal prosecution in American history. He told the County Council budget committee yesterday that no single criminal case has ever spanned so much time -- 21 years so far -- and involved so many victims, witnesses, documents, leads and pieces of evidence. "There's nothing to compare in the criminal field," he added later in an interview. Ridgway, 54, arrested in November 2001, is charged with killing seven young women. Most of their bodies were found in the Green River between 1982 and 1988. The prosecutor is seeking the death penalty. In all, 49 women who disappeared are thought to have been possible Green River victims. Sheriff's detectives are still investigating cases in which charges haven't been filed. For some aspects of preparing for and managing a trial that could last a year, King County authorities are studying the celebrated cases of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and O.J. Simpson. Locally, the cost of the Ridgway case puts it in a class by itself. King County has appropriated $12.1 million for the investigation, prosecution, defense and court administration in 2002 and 2003 alone. No estimates have been made for future years. The trial is scheduled to begin in King County Superior Court July 14, 2004. Twelve sheriff's detectives are working on the Green River investigation -- five primarily on the seven charged cases and seven on the uncharged cases and other duties. Capt. Jim Graddon, commander of the investigation, said part of the work entails making sure investigators don't attribute to Ridgway some homicides that could have been committed by someone else -- a factor the defense probably is also examining, he noted. Graddon said the case is "unlike anything we've ever seen before ... The number of tips you receive is incredible." The court-ordered staffing levels for Ridgway's defense consist of eight attorneys, 7.5 investigator positions, two clerks and six paralegals. Ridgway is paying for one of the lawyers. As a model for the defense budget, King County Public Defender Anne Harper said her office is using the Kaczynski case. He pleaded guilty in 1998 to bombings that killed three people and injured 29 and was sentenced to four life terms plus 30 years. "Their budget was very consistent with our budget," Harper said. She noted that the Unabomber case had a similar time span, involving attacks between 1978 and 1995. Superior Court administrators are using the Simpson murder trial as a model for managing public and news-media access to the Ridgway trial and have been "working with the people who organized the Simpson trial," said Paul Sherfey, the court's chief administrative officer. Simpson was acquitted of criminal charges in the 1994 slayings of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, but a civil jury later ordered him to pay $33.5 million for their deaths. The Ridgway trial will be on the ninth floor of the county courthouse under heavy security. Sherfey said courtroom seating will be reserved for victims' families and a limited number of news media, with other media assigned to a separate room from which they may view the trial. Jury summonses are expected to be sent to 10,000 King County voters, from whom a list of 500 will be winnowed. Sherfey said those numbers are consistent with what have been used in other high-profile trials, although he acknowledged that the "possibly significant length" of the Ridgway trial and the hardships that could entail might complicate jury selection.

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