Man Who Set Quadruple-LODD Seattle, Washington Warehouse Fire Seeks Lower Prison Term
SEATTLE (AP) -- A man who set a fire in which four firefighters died in 1995 could go free under a motion citing a recent Supreme Court ruling in a bid to nullify the rest of his prison term.
In a motion filed Wedcnesday in King County Superior Court, defense lawyer John Henry Browne argued that the extra-long prison term of 35 years that Martin Pang accepted in a plea agreement conflicts with the high court's ruling in a kidnapping case last summer.
In Blakely v. Washington, the Supreme Court ruled that a sentence exceeding the standard range must be imposed by a jury rather than a judge acting alone. Browne said that should mean cutting Pang's sentence to the time he already has spent behind bars.
``I have always had complete sympathy for the Fire Department and the victims' families,'' Browne said, ``but the law applies to everyone. There's no Martin Pang exception to the Constitution.''
City fire officials and relatives of the victims were upset, although a prosecutor said predicted the motion would be rejected.
``It's a sad day today,'' Fire Chief Gregory M. Dean said. ``There's a lot of disbelief in this building right now.''
Pang was convicted of torching an International District warehouse that housed his mother's business, Mary Pang's Food Products, on Jan. 5, 1995, in hopes of benefiting from insurance. Four firefighters died after a floor collapsed, plunging them into an inferno.
After fleeing to Brazil, being extradited after prosecutors promised not to seek the death penalty and winning a court ruling that barred the filing of murder charges, he pleaded guilty in 1998 to four counts of first-degree manslaughter and agreed to serve each sentence of eight years and nine months consecutively.
Without the plea agreement, he could have been sentenced to life in prison for arson.
Pang, now 49, is being held at the Monroe Correctional Complex and could be released in 2018 with time off for good behavior, said Veltry Johnson, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.
The state Supreme Court has yet to determine whether the Blakely ruling should be applied retroactively and to negotiated sentences liked that of Pang.
Deputy prosecutor Mark R. Larson asserted that the sentence could not be changed without reopening the plea agreement, which he said was fairly negotiated and should not be affected by Blakely.
``This case is final,'' Larson said. ``Nothing has come along to change that.''
The motion still troubled relatives of Randall R. Terlicker, 35, Gregory M. Shoemaker, 43, Lt. Walter D. Kilgore, 45, and James T. Brown, 25, who died in the fire.
``It's like a blow to the stomach, and I know that's how we all feel,'' said Kilgore's widow, Mary Anne Kilgore. ``You never get over a death, but time does help - but then, all of a sudden, you're right back there when something like this happens.''
