A bigger-than-life Franklin County prosecutor for 24 years remembered

For 24 years Jim Rabideau cut a colorful figure as the prosecutor of the county he loved, arguing cases in some of Franklin County’s most heinous crimes for 24 years, and making the county a better place for decades more.

He was one of five attorneys who died over the last year who were remembered by the Benton Franklin Counties Bar Association at its recent annual memorial service.

In addition celebrations of Rabideau’s life are planned on Sunday, June 1, and Monday, June 2.

Rabideau died Aug. 31 at age 98.

He was elected prosecutor in 1963, also serving as coroner, which was the practice at the time because of the size of the county.

The Tri-City Herald reported 19 years into his prosecutor career that he and the 22-year Benton County prosecutor at the time, Curt Ludwig, had one of the best criminal conviction rates in the state of Washington.

Rabideau told the Herald in the early ‘80s that one of his toughest cases was the prosecution of Michael Anderson, a Chicago native who came to Pasco in 1978 and within months of his arrival had committed 17 rapes and robberies.

“The impact that man left on the lives of his victims was hard to deal with,” Rabideau said.

Anderson was sentenced to serve back-to-back 10-year prison terms for crimes.

Prosecuting shocking crimes

But his best known case arguably was one of the the most shocking crimes in Tri-Cities history, the murder of Franklin County Superior Court Judge James Lawless on June 1, 1974.

The judge was Rabideau’s friend and he would say years later that the case drained him emotionally.

Lawless was killed by a pipe bomb when he began to tear the brown wrapper off a small box delivered to his courthouse chambers, triggering the explosion.

Rabideau told the Herald in 2014 that he was confident that his prosecution of Ricky Anthony Young put the right man in prison, but he suspected at least one other person may have been involved.

Two partial fingerprints matching Young were found underneath tape on a piece of paper from the package.

Rabideau’s first attempt to convict Young ended with a mistrial. But a tip from a prisoner at the Yakima County jail helped lead law enforcement to more evidence that led to Young being found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 77 years in prison.

Rabideau also prosecuted the case of Ethel Graves, accusing her of dropping her 3-year-old daughter off the Snake River bridge near Burbank on a winter night in 1966. The girl survived and Rabideau charged her mom with first-degree assault.

“I thought she was quite competent at the time she did it,” Rabideau told the Herald in 2015. “She was quite mad at her husband at the time she did.”

A jury ultimately found she was innocent by reason of insanity and she was sent to a state hospital.

He has been described as a realistic but compassionate prosecutor and among the changes he brought to the Franklin County legal system was establishing work release.

It wasn’t just Rabideau’s legal skills that he was remembered for.

Rabideau’s ‘Car Beautiful’

His flamboyant style led to jokes that spectators would line up outside his Pasco office to see what combination of three shades of red, polka dots and plaids he was wearing that day, topped in the winter with a plaid tam.

He drove a county car that was purchased for county superintendents who rarely used it.

When Rabideau started using the 1957 Chevy in 1971 it had only 24,600 miles on it and he fixed it up with a two-way radio, a detachable red light he kept in the trunk and a purple-with-white-racing-stripes paint job to honor the Pasco High bulldogs.

He called it “Car Beautiful.”

“(S)he still runs as sweet as ever,” he said when the odometer rolled over to 70,000 miles in late 1985.

Rabideau retired in 1988, after not running for a seventh term as prosecutor.

He said he needed a break from the stress and he was discouraged by county budget cuts that reduced his staff. He feared the county could face legal malpractice claims.

Franklin County, veterans service

He retired into a busy life, expanding his volunteer activities, including helping the American Legion promote veterans’ interests and preserving Pasco area history. He also was active in the Franklin County Democratic Central Committee and lobbied legislators on social issues.

He served during the end of the World War II, and was recalled to active duty for the Korean War. He spent 42 years in the Navy Reserve, including serving in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

He served on the Franklin County Historical Society Board for more than 25 years and was instrumental in converting Pasco’s 1911 Carnegie Library into the museum it is today.

Family and friends of Rabideau have organized a celebration of his life at June 1 at the American Legion Post 34 in Pasco. On June 2 at 9 a.m. a procession to the City View Cemetery will begin at the American Legion Post at 10th and Sylvester.

Rabideau will make his last drive through Pasco in Car Beautiful, driven by is son Sam. Military honors are planned, along with the flyover of a Stearman airplane similar to the one on which Rabideau trained.

He is survived by his four children, nine grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.

Other Benton Franklin Counties Bar Association members remembered:

Matthew Rutt

Matthew Rutt died Feb. 7, 2025, at 59 after working about 35 years as an attorney, mostly as a defense attorney in the Tri-Cities after starting his career in Colfax and Walla Walla.

Rutt’s personal life was one of considerable adversity.

His wife, who he met when she was a schoolteacher in Colfax, died when their son was just 13, and Rutt became a devoted single parent.

He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 5 and that led to significant health issues in his later years, but he continued practicing law until a few months before his death, said Benton County Superior Judge Bronson Brown, who led the bar memorial service.

The Herald noted in 2008 the difference he made in the life of another Tri-Cities attorney, Ben Carroll.

Carroll was confined to a wheelchair and unable to write due to spinal muscular atrophy and then a stroke affected his speech, but dreamed of using his hard-earned law degree. Rutt took a chance on him, giving him legal work, highlighted by the courtroom experience of cross-examining a witness in a robbery trial.

Rutt is survived by his son, Frederick Rutt, and his son’s wife, Barbara.

Floyd Ivey

Floyd Ivey, a prominent Kennewick attorney and civic leader died Aug. 9, 2024, at 83.

He practiced law in Kennewick for nearly 45 years, including working in private practice as a registered patent attorney until retiring in 2021.

John Schultz, unofficial dean of the Tri-Cities legal community, said at the time of Ivey’s death that he was a fierce advocate for clients.

Ivey worked as an electrical engineer in Las Vegas before pursuing a law degree and brought his combined engineering and legal background to his advocacy in the Eastern Washington section of the American Nuclear Society.

Tim Anderson

Tim Anderson, 67, died June 23, 2024, after living in the Tri-Cities for more than 50 years.

He was a retired attorney who had worked at Hames, Anderson and Whitlow, and at Gravis Law.

His practice mostly emphasized personal injury litigation, wrongful death, probate law and civil litigation, including for the Kennewick School District.

Brown, who called Anderson a mentor, remembered that he was not a small person, but he loved small sports cars.

Among the cars he owned was a MINI Cooper and a restored red Datsun circa 1970.

Bradley Bartlett

Attorney Bradley Bartlett, 35, died along with his wife and two daughters in a crash in rural Benton County July 24, 2024.

His 2-year-old son survived the crash.

Bartlett had moved to the Tri-Cities to take a job in the Benton County Prosecutor’s Office less than four months earlier.

Benton County Prosecutor Eric Eisinger said at the bar memorial service that he believed that if Bartlett were there he would want people “to know that he was unspeakably sorry.”