Court of Appeals: Entire Pierce County Prosecutor's Office Should Not Have Been Disqualified From Case Where Deputy Prosecutor Was the Victim

A Washington State appellate court has ruled that a Pierce County judge went too far when he disqualified the entire Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office from a criminal case because the alleged victim of one of the charges was a deputy prosecutor in that office.

In a published opinion filed July 14, 2026, Division Two of the Washington State Court of Appeals in Tacoma held that Pierce County Superior Court Judge Phil Thornton erred when he removed the entire office from the prosecution of Christopher Lynn Spanjer, and that screening the individual conflicted prosecutor from the case was enough.

The three-judge panel noted that no Washington court had previously addressed the precise question of whether an entire prosecuting attorney's office must step aside when one of its own deputy prosecutors is the crime victim. 

Because the opinion is published, it now serves as binding precedent for trial courts across the state.

The Background: A Fled Traffic Stop and an Injured Prosecutor

According to the opinion, the State alleged that on September 10, 2024, Spanjer fled a traffic stop and crashed into a vehicle driven by Sean Plunkett, injuring him. 

Plunkett is employed as a deputy prosecuting attorney in the criminal division of the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

The day after the crash, the office restricted Plunkett's access to the digital file for Spanjer's case.

On September 12, 2024, the State charged Spanjer with six offenses: unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle, failure to remain at an injury accident, attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle, driving under the influence, making or possessing motor vehicle theft materials, and third degree driving while in suspended or revoked status.

In January 2025, after receiving additional information about Plunkett's injuries, the State amended the charges to add one count of vehicular assault, with Plunkett as the alleged victim.

The case was assigned to deputy prosecutor Miriam Norman, who according to the court record had very little interaction with Plunkett before her assignment. 

Norman was instructed not to discuss the case with Plunkett except in her official capacity, as she would with any crime victim, and stated that she handled the case consistently with her other cases. 

Plunkett stated he would not participate as a deputy prosecutor in the case and had been screened from it through various mechanisms.

The Disqualification Order

Spanjer moved to disqualify the entire office, arguing that removal was necessary to avoid the appearance of unfairness and that office-wide disqualification was required under the Rules of Professional Conduct because Plunkett would likely be a witness at trial. 

At the hearing, Spanjer argued that Plunkett's role in the office would make it difficult for any deputy prosecutor there to exercise independent judgment.

Judge Thornton agreed and disqualified the entire office in an order filed June 16, 2025. In his written ruling, he stated that Plunkett's "colleagues likely have a vested interest in his wellbeing," and that the pressure of having a colleague as the victim could affect the State's ability to handle the case, make an appropriate plea offer, and treat Spanjer the same as similarly situated defendants facing the same charges.

The State sought discretionary review. While that motion was pending, the Court of Appeals stayed enforcement of the disqualification order, and a commissioner of the court then granted review.

A Guilty Plea, and a Question of Mootness

After the case was set for oral argument, Spanjer and the prosecutor's office reached a mutually agreeable plea bargain. Spanjer withdrew his objection to the office handling his case and pleaded guilty.

Spanjer then argued that his guilty plea rendered the appeal moot. 

The panel agreed that it could no longer provide effective relief, since there was no longer a case to prosecute. But it decided to reach the merits anyway under an exception to the mootness doctrine for issues of continuing and substantial public interest, citing the need for an authoritative determination to guide public officers and the likelihood that the question would recur while continuing to evade review.

The Ruling: Screening Is Enough

Writing for the panel, Judge Bradley Maxa concluded that neither Plunkett's personal conflict of interest nor any potential conflict held by his colleagues required removing the entire office.

The State conceded that Plunkett himself was disqualified from participating in the case, both as the alleged victim of one of the charged offenses and as a necessary witness. 

But the court held that under the Washington Supreme Court's decisions in State v. Stenger and State v. Nickels, when a deputy prosecuting attorney is disqualified for any reason and is effectively screened from the case, disqualification of the entire office is, in the Supreme Court's words, "neither necessary nor wise."

The panel found no evidence that the screening procedures the office put in place to wall Plunkett off from the case were ineffective.

The court also pointed to 2006 amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct, which eliminated the automatic imputation of one government lawyer's conflict to an entire government office. 

Office-wide disqualification remains presumptively proper in one narrow situation: when the elected prosecuting attorney personally represented the defendant in the same case or a closely interwoven matter. 

That exception did not apply here, the court noted, because there was no indication the elected Pierce County prosecutor had any personal conflict.

The panel rejected Spanjer's separate argument that every attorney in the office had a conflict simply because Plunkett was their colleague. 

Judge Maxa wrote that the record showed Norman and Plunkett were mere co-employees in a large office rather than close personal friends, that there was no actual evidence the office treated Spanjer's case differently, and that Spanjer's own plea agreement suggested the office had not treated him unfairly.

The court also observed that the "appearance of fairness" doctrine invoked in the trial court's oral ruling does not apply to prosecutors performing executive functions such as charging decisions and plea bargaining, under the Supreme Court's decision in State v. Finch. 

Prosecutors, unlike judges, are not required to be entirely neutral and are permitted to be zealous in enforcing the law.

"We hold that the trial court erred in disqualifying the entire PCPAO in this case," Maxa wrote.

The Outcome

Acting Chief Judge Erik Price and Judge Meng Li Che concurred in the opinion.

The State was represented on appeal by Pamela Beth Loginsky of the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office in Tacoma.

Spanjer was represented by Seattle attorney Stephanie C. Cunningham.

Because the appeal was moot, the ruling has no practical effect on Spanjer's case, which he resolved by pleading guilty. But as a published opinion, the decision provides binding guidance for Washington trial courts the next time a prosecutor's office finds one of its own on the victim side of a criminal charge.