VANDALISM
• Police arrested an 18-year-old Centralia man last night after he was allegedly seen spray painting graffiti at several locations in Centralia. Garrett M. Giradin was booked into the Lewis County Jail for third-degree malicious mischief, according to the Centralia Police Department.
APPEAL: CONVICTION FOR MINOR WOUND GETS MINOR DO-OVER
• An appeals court has said a Centralia man should have been convicted of second-degree assault not first-degree in a case in which he was found to have stabbed his wife in the back of her neck, missing all her vital parts and leaving a small but deep puncture wound. Twenty-seven-year-old Yovany Hernandez Gomez was arrested and charged in May 2011 and the following September found guilty in jury trial in Lewis County Superior Court. It happened at the woman’s brother’s house on North Pearl Street where she had gone after a fight with her husband, police said at the time. According to court documents, he said it was accidental as he tried to hug her, but her testimony indicated it occurred as she was trying to get away from him and fell down briefly losing consciousness. A doctor described the one-centimeter wide but three-and-half-inch deep wound as one that could have killed her if the knife had penetrated at a slightly different angle, and said it would leave a “pretty minimal” permanent scar. Hernandez-Gomez’s appeals attorneys argued the state failed to prove the severity of the injuries met the standard of “the most serious injuries short of death” needed for first-degree assault. The decision from the Washington State Court of Appeals Division II– stating it viewed the evidence in the most favorable light to the state – focused on the injury itself being relatively minor, creating only soreness and sensitivity as it healed. The court looked at the difference between great bodily harm and substantial bodily harm. The court said the evidence showed the disfigurement may be permanent, but was not disfigurement of a “significant” or “serious” nature. The decision filed on Tuesday reversed Hernandez-Gomez’s conviction for first-degree assault and remanded to the trial court to enter a judgement and sentence for second-degree assault.
AND MORE
• And as usual, other incidents such as arrests for warrant, driving with suspended license, driving under the influence; responses for minor collisions on Harrison Avenue in Centralia, small cooking fire, small grass fire, small fire under a house from a cigarette butt, lots of aid calls … and more.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter