On the surface, a pair of murders in our state nearly two months ago don’t have anything in common except for each occurring in mid-October and resulting in the arrest of a young man.
One occurred in north Seattle, the other in Spokane — far from our corner of the state. Yet it’s a local prosecutor, Lewis County’s Jonathan Meyer, who sees two common denominators.
Not only are the suspected murderers both former residents of Green Hill School, the county’s state-run juvenile facility, but he ties the timing of the crimes to this year’s passage of House Bill 1815.
It’s among the latest additions to a very long list of soft-on-crime laws supported by Democrats.
The change in law made by House Bill 1815 didn’t just do away with the ability of prosecutors to file a charge of “prison riot” against offenders at Green Hill and other juvenile detention facilities. It also allowed any offender charged with prison riot while in juvenile detention and later found guilty to effectively have the conviction tossed out. That can mean the difference between remaining incarcerated and being freed.
Within weeks of the murders, Prosecutor Meyer sent a strongly worded letter to legislators who put HB 1815 into law. If not for their actions, he explained, the 20-year-old arrested in the Seattle case would not have been free when that murder occurred Oct. 15 — or three days later, when he was picked up in California.
Instead, he still would have been in custody due to a prison riot charge and subsequent conviction from his time at Green Hill.
Similarly, the 19-year-old arrested in Olympia 10 days after the Spokane murder likely would not have been free either, having been charged with prison riot at Green Hill about a year ago.
The charge of prison riot dates to a 1955 state law, which allows it to be filed against two or more inmates of a correctional institution.
If there was any question about whether a juvenile offender could be charged with prison riot, it was settled in 2021. The bipartisan passage of Senate Bill 5304 that year clarified the definition of “correctional institution” to include juvenile-detention facilities and facilities operated by the Department of Children, Youth and Families.
In the years since, the Lewis County prosecutor’s office filed prison riot charges as appropriate in response to multiple riots and other safety and security issues at Green Hill. Evidently that caught the attention of Democrats in the House and their offender-friendly, special-interest allies, leading to HB 1815.
Supporters of the bill pulled out every stop as it moved from one committee and chamber to the next, even playing the race card by referring to “a legal system in Lewis County where 81 percent of the community members are white.”
Common sense tells us that even though the 70-year-old prison-riot law specifies two or more inmates, a fistfight between two offenders at Green Hill doesn’t rise to the level of a prison riot.
Republicans acknowledged that when this bill came to the floor of the Senate chamber. We proposed a change in the bill to create a charge of “juvenile confinement riot” that wouldn’t apply unless at least four people were involved.
Democrat legislators wouldn’t hear of it. As a result, they have made it possible for the entire offender population of Green Hill to start a full-blown riot — as in take the facility over, hold hostages, injure staff and more — without anyone being charged with prison riot.
In doing so, to quote from the Lewis County prosecutor’s letter to legislators, they also normalized criminal behavior in a way that has had an impact on the lives of everyone linked to the October murders in Seattle and Spokane.
Those include the 19-year-old victim of the Seattle shooting, who also had been a recent Green Hill resident. In his letter, Prosecutor Meyer recalls how that young man also had been up for a charge of prison riot until a review of the incident determined he was leading a peaceful protest instead — so no prison riot charge was filed.
The prosecutor’s restraint goes against the narrative from the bill’s supporters, who falsely painted his office as pursuing prison riot charges whenever it could.
It was bad enough that Democrats allowed ideology to get in the way of passing my Senate Bill 5278, which would thoughtfully deal with the overpopulation that has contributed to Green Hill’s well-documented safety and security issues.
By approving HB 1815 they went farther down the wrong path, as the Green Hill connections to the two October murders suggest. It’s no wonder Prosecutor Meyer’s letter referred to “blood on the hands of the Legislature.”
Taking a tool away from prosecutors only hinders Green Hill’s mission to help its residents successfully re-enter our communities. We can and should fix this in 2026, along with passing the population-management bill aimed at making the institution safer for all. It’s how our state does better.
Sen. John Braun (R-Centralia)
Senator John Braun was first elected to the Washington State Senate in 2012 to represent Southwest Washington’s 20th Legislative District, which includes most of Cowlitz and Lewis counties along with parts of Clark and Thurston.
John is leader of the Senate Republican Caucus and a member of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, the Labor & Commerce Committee, and the Housing Committee.
Prior to his business career, John served on active duty in the U.S. Navy. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington and master’s degrees in business administration and manufacturing engineering from the University of Michigan.
He and his family reside on a small farm in rural Lewis County, outside Centralia.
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Author: Lynnwood Times Contributor
