Mistrial declared in Kennewick assault case because of juror misconduct

The trial for a 33-year-old man charged with a Thanksgiving eve shooting outside a Kennewick tavern abruptly ended Thursday after a person claiming to be a juror wrote an online post questioning the evidence collection process.

Superior Court Judge Carrie Runge had no choice but to declare a mistrial in the case of Tyree Q. Houfmuse after she learned of the juror misconduct.

Defense attorney John Crowley of Seattle requested the mistrial, and Benton County Deputy Prosecutor Terry Bloor did not object.

Runge individually questioned the 13 jurors about the post, but no one admitted responsibility.

The post on “The Straight Dope” website was made under an online moniker that reportedly did not match anyone on the panel. However, the person is a member of the site with a listed location of Richland, so an annoyed fellow user researched the judicial district and alerted Runge to the violation.

“If you are really sitting on the jury you have to go tell the judge that you violated (her) instructions so you will be removed from that jury,” the person wrote. “I hate to do this, but I’m reporting this thread.”

Houfmuse is charged in Benton County Superior Court with first-degree assault with a firearm allegation and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.

The trial started Monday, and the defense was scheduled to present its case Thursday.

Houfmuse has claimed he acted in self-defense when he shot Anthony L. Asselin four times outside the Village Tavern on Nov. 26.

Asselin, then 29, was paralyzed from the chest down after one of the bullets became lodged in his spine. He is a father of four and a local rapper who goes by the name “Redd 100.”

Houfmuse and Asselin reportedly had a “beef” while inside the tavern and took their argument outside. Witnesses told police at the scene that Houfmuse shot Asselin several times without any physical provocation.

Houfmuse was at the tavern that night with his girlfriend, Aquarius S. Gibbs.

She denied seeing her boyfriend allegedly shoot Asselin, but told investigators she assumed it was him. The two hopped in their car and fled the scene, then Gibbs reportedly took over and drove Houfmuse to a Hermiston home.

Gibbs is Asselin’s former girlfriend and mother to one of his children. She pleaded guilty in April to second-degree rendering criminal assistance, a gross misdemeanor, and was sentenced to six months in county jail.

The trial was in recess Wednesday afternoon when the judge reportedly was contacted by someone across the country about the online post. Runge brought it to the attention of Bloor and Crowley on Thursday before going back into session with the jury.

The entry on the website’s message board is titled, “Locating Evidence at Crime Scene.” It was posted overnight Tuesday.

“I am sitting on a jury trial in which a detective for one of the local police departments described their procedure for locating items of evidence at a crime scene so that the crime scene can be later reconstructed,” the member known as Waterman wrote.

Waterman detailed how the procedure is referred to as triangulation and involves locating two fixed points — calling them X and Y — measuring from each point to the flagged evidence, and the possibility of having to find an alternate fixed point Z if the item is on the straight line between X and Y.

The juror questioned if this system is accurate and added that the investigator’s “field drawings are no where near accurate enough to clearly indicate which intersection point that they might be describing relative to points X and Y.”

They finally asked fellow site users if they were missing something with the detective’s explanation.

The posting had 570 views and 11 replies when a site moderator closed it Wednesday morning.

The moderator, along with two other commenters, noted that when you serve on a jury, you are “given instructions not to discuss evidence outside of the jury room.”

The thread would be reopened only if someone could “cite why this discussion is legally permissible,” the moderator said.

Bloor told the Herald that Kennewick Cpl. Todd Dronen did testify in Houfmuse’s trial about using coordinates X and Y to triangulate various items at the crime scene.

“I am convinced that whoever wrote this did hear Cpl. Dronen’s testimony,” he said. “All of the jurors denied writing this or discuss the case, so I don’t think Judge Runge had much of an option (but) to declare a mistrial.”

Crowley, in an email to the Herald from his law firm, called it “a stranger than television twist to an extremely serious first-degree assault trial.”

He credited the person who read the blog post and “knew of the impropriety of such a communique” and notified the court of the problem.

A second trial has been scheduled for Sept. 8. In the meantime, Houfmuse remains held in the Benton County jail on $200,000 bail.

This story was originally published July 2, 2015 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Mistrial declared in Kennewick assault case because of juror misconduct."