MyBallard reader Marc wondered how the King County Prosecutor’s Office had come to the decision to ask the judge for a 23-year sentence for 17-year-old Elijah Hall, the teen who pleaded guilt of murdering Manish Melwani at the Quick Stop market on July 26, 2009, so he sent an email with these questions.
(1) Why, on the Offender Scoring Sheet, were there no scores marked under Mr. Hall’s Juvenile History? I see that on his Criminal History he indeed has two felony counts against him.
(2) Why was there no adjustment (weapons enhancement) sought for this crime pursuant to RCW 9.94.A.533(3)(a)?
Marc says, “I’m by no means a lawyer, but the press has been lax on providing information on the decision making process as to why the prosecutor’s office is suggesting 280 months, where it would seem like a range of 286-379 would appear to the layman to have been more appropriate, i.e., offender score of 4 + the weapons enhancement.”
Ian Goodhew from the Prosecutor’s office sent this response:
Thank you for contacting the King County Prosecutor’s Office regarding the prosecution of Elijah Hall for the murder of Manish Melwani. We appreciate hearing from you on this tragic case.
Mr. Hall pled guilty as charged to one count of Murder in the First Degree for the commission of a felony murder during the course of committing the crime of Robbery in the First Degree.
The Standard Sentence Range for the crime of Murder in the 1st Degree as mandated by the State legislature is 240 to 320 months, with an Offender Score of Zero.
Mr. Hall does not have any prior felony convictions. We had charged him with Attempted Robbery 2 and Assault 3 for an incident where he and two other friends tried to steal an I-Pod from a student at a neighborhood school. The Court released him and those charges were pending when Mr. Hall committed the murder of Mr. Melwani.
Only convictions can be counted against a person when calculating their offender score under the SRA. Because he is not yet convicted, the juvenile convictions do not score against him unless we require him to also plead to those counts.
Mr. Hall was not charged with a Firearm Enhancement on the murder count up front. The firearm enhancement would add 5 years to a standard range sentence for a Class A offense. he was not charged with this enhancement up front in the hope that he would plead guilty to charge. Our senior DPA who had prosecuted the case has met with the Mr. Melwani’s family on several occasions as has our victim advocate in order to understand the wishes of the family. The family supported an approach that would induce an early plea and spare the family a trial.
In exchange for Mr. pleading guilty as charged to the Murder 1 offense, we agreed not to file the firearm enhancement or to require a plea to the juvenile charges. The juvenile charges had proof problems develop prior to the murder that would have made proving the charges difficult. In consultation with the family, we agreed to a pea as charged to Murder 1 with a range of 240 to 320 with our recommendation being 280. The family is free to ask for what they feel is appropriate, which will likely be somewhere between 300 to 320 months.
Hall will be sentenced this Friday in King County Superior Court.