Jefferson County Prosecutor Michael Haas had a stronger case on retrial than the one that had sent Patrick McAllister to prison 6 years earlier.  At the same time the defense case had gotten weaker.

But Haas threw the case away, turned loose a man with a long history of sexual assaults and revictimized the young woman who had looked to him for justice.

To read the reports leading up to this final installment, please click here.

McAllister’s Defense Stood on a Lie about an Artificial Knee

 The Sheriff’s sergeant who responded to SL’s 911 call from McAllister’s Brinnon home has said she was the most terrified person he has encountered in his career.  After she was removed from the house she began to trust the strangers trying to help her.  Her story of 6 weeks of almost daily rapes, sometimes more than once a day, emerged.  She spoke Waray-Waray, a little Tagalog and very little English.  She moved into Dove House, Port Townsend’s domestic violence shelter. Counselors helped her talk about what happened.

Her story came in fits and starts.  Details and dates translated into English were at times confused and conflicting, but the central facts never wavered.

A medical exam found lesions and evidence of bruising, injuries consistent with rape. The woman who said that she had been a virgin before that first rape in McAllister’s house also now had an STD.

McAllister at trial in 2012 limped to the stand and testified he could not possibly have raped SL. He had an artificial knee that “didn’t work right” and the ankle of the same leg had been injured.  SL had testified that he would sometimes kick her.  She testified he had raped her against the wall when she went into the bath to shower.  He said her story was impossible because of his artificial knee.

This was the first time McAllister had said anything about an artificial knee.  The best the prosecutor managed in closing was to mock McAllister for not presenting medical records or a physician to corroborate his last-minute claim.

Despite inconsistencies in SL’s account and a long delay in conducting a rape exam, the jury found McAllister guilty.  He was sentenced to 250 months in prison.

The case was twice upheld on direct appeal.  In a third round, McAllister’s new attorney, John Cain, argued that the trial lawyer had incompetently failed to buttress the artificial knee defense with medical testimony.  Cain had a doctor ready to testify McAllister could not have raped SL because of that artificial knee.  We have reproduced above a key part of that proposed testimony.  The doctor was also willing to testify that the limited range of motion caused by the knee replacement made SL’s story about McAllister kicking her and raping her in the shower impossible.  McAllister, he was willing to testify, could not get into and out of a bathtub without assistance because of his artificial knee.

Problem is, it’s all a lie.

McAllister did not get his artificial knee until a year after the alleged rapes. Indeed, he did not see a doctor about any knee problem until he knew he was under investigation.  The rapes reported by SL occurred in March and April 2010.  The medical records state McAllister:

Haas had this powerful evidence that McAllister was fabricating his main defense.  It was in the medical history attached to the summary of the expert’s proposed testimony.

Here’s more:  McAllister’s attorney perhaps inadvertently disclosed records referring to surveillance videos of McAllister shortly before the alleged rapes. The surveillance had been conducted in connection with McAllister’s claim of a workplace injury.  They show him walking normally when he did not think he was being watched.  They are discussed by the Court of Appeals. Haas knew about the videos but never obtained them for McAllister’s retrial.

And more:  Shortly before SL arrived from the Philippines, McAllister pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman he picked up at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  They went to a bar to go dancing before he brought her to his home where he assaulted her.  Haas never contacted that woman to contradict McAllister’s immobility defense.

And still more:  In his guilty plea in that case, McAllister admitted the facts in the police report as the factual basis for his guilty plea. That report states he had raped three other women he had met at AA meetings.  Haas never contacted those women to contradict McAllister’s physical incapacity claims.

Yes, more:  McAllister’s hired expert contended McAllister could not get into a bathtub without assistance.  But before SL arrived, McAllister lived alone.  Photographs of his house show no ramps, no handrails, no modifications of bathtubs to accommodate mobility limitations. Someone who could not get in and out of a bathtub without assistance would have had great difficulty maintaining McAllister’s mountainside property.

          

It goes on:  McAllister had hiked with SL in the valley above Brinnon.  He took her all over Seattle.  The man who couldn’t bend his leg swam at a resort in the Philippines.

Haas had all of this to destroy McAllister’s fabricated defense, and threw it away.

STD Sleight of Hand

 Early in his efforts to persuade Haas to drop the case, Cain provided test results showing that McAllister did not have an STD.  SL had an STD.  She said she had been a virgin before McAllister. Therefore, the argument went, she got the STD from him.  But a test showing McAllister negative for an STD made SL look like the liar and cast doubt about the rest of her statements.

Problem was, it was a test for the wrong STD.

Cain had sent Haas a test for Chlamydia.  SL had not contracted Chlamydia, but HPV, human papillomavirus.  It is the most common STD in the United States, particularly among sexually active men, as was McAllister.

Curious that a defense lawyer would order a test for only the wrong STD, a determined prosecutor might ask for all medical records to see if anything was being held back.  McAllister’s medical records from five years in prison, where STDs are of particular concern, could have been examined.  Instead, Haas was snookered into believing that McAllister was free of any STD.

Willing Surrender

In his motion to dismiss, Haas told the court that the first jury should never have heard evidence of SL’s vaginal bruises and lesions because they could not possibly have been caused by McAllister.  How could he know with such certainty?  There was nothing to explain those injuries except McAllister’s violence.

Haas had retained no medical experts to work with him.  He made this assertion based solely on the statement of an expert hired by McAllister’s lawyer.  That expert had never examined SL.  He had never been questioned by Haas.  His work had not been evaluated by a medical expert not being paid to help keep McAllister out of jail.

McAllister’s expert witness was not qualified in forensic medicine.  He did not practice in the field of trauma diagnosis and treatment.

The opinion was founded on the single assertion that all signs of bruising disappear in two weeks or less. Period.  No exceptions.

A simple Google search by Haas would have revealed this blanket assertion to be problematic.  It depends very much on the individual and the nature of the injury.  Women take longer to heal. Organs and sensitive areas take longer than arms and legs. SL had testified the rapes happened almost daily, sometimes more than once a day, for about six weeks, and McAllister would take pills to keep or cause an erection.  She is tiny.  McAllister is a much larger man.  The sustained, repeated trauma was inflicted on very sensitive parts of her body.

Haas did not even try to keep this important corroborative evidence.

The Defense Lost Its Motive Argument

McAllister had to explain why SL would be making this all up.

At the first trial, his lawyer argued that this young Filipino woman had studied US immigration law and learned about the “U Visa.”  The argument went like this:  she agreed to marry McAllister to enter the country on a finance’ visa.  She moved into his house knowing his long history of sexually assaulting women because it fit her scheme, even if it exposed her to danger.  His criminal history would make her allegations of rape credible when she sprang her trap.  She endured, waited six weeks, then called 911 alleging rape and abuse.  She no longer needed to marry McAllister. She could stay under a “U Visa,” which ensures that victims of domestic abuse remain in-country to cooperate in the prosecution of sexual offenders.

Sound implausible?  The first jury thought so.

This was the only motive McAllister’s lawyers could concoct.  Now it was gone.

Eight years later SL had not changed her story.  She wanted McAllister punished for what he did to her. She now had a green card that did not require her testimony about rape and abuse. McAllister had no way to explain why she would still be lying.

Conclusion:  Injustice, Incompetence, Indifference

A jury had once found SL credible, beyond a reasonable doubt.  Years later, with her memory fading, Haas nonetheless found her “very credible,” as he said in an email to Cain.

He had a stronger case than the prosecutor before him.  The defense’s already lame case could no longer even limp to the witness stand.

In losing the Court of Appeals argument Haas had the evidence that McAllister was lying about the artificial knee defense, but never brought it up.

The records we have examined show Haas never was serious about retrying McAllister.  He started talking with Cain about dismissal from the moment the case was returned to Jefferson County.  In October of 2017 he told Cain he could not dismiss the case only for the reason “it was too big.”  Yet, he did nothing to try to win.

Months went by, until March 6, 2018, when he finally spoke with SL about the facts of her case fast coming up for trial.  He had a problem.  She would not go away.  She wanted justice.

Cain gave him an out.  In February he sent Haas a polygraph he had arranged for McAllister. Even though McAllister was lying about his artificial knee defense, somehow he passed.

Washington courts have “consistently” recognized polygraphs as unreliable. That is why they cannot be used in court. Sociopaths pass.  It has been shown that prisoners can train themselves to pass polygraphs. (McAllister displayed distress and breathing difficulty from alleged shoulder and arm pain that got worse during the exam).

Haas turned to trained polygrapher Detective Joe Nole of the Sheriff’s Office for advice.  We requested all of the communications between them on this subject.  The response to our public records request from Haas was oddly scant.  He dropped this case in large part because, as he told the court, he “could not ignore” the polygraph. Yet the records he produced contain no written report or memoranda on the reliability of McAllister’s polygraph examination.

The polygraph examination reveals reason to be skeptical.  The examiner asked McAllister if he had ever tried to get a woman “to do something sexual she didn’t want to.”  McAllister was also asked, other than SL, “in the past 20 years have you treated any woman in an abusive manner?”  And, “have you made any woman feel abused or threatened.”

McAllister answered “no” to all these questions.  Yet, he had pled guilty to sexual assault in 2009, admitting as part of his plea a report he had raped three other women; he had been arrested in Kitsap County for rape; and five women had taken out restraining orders against him because he was “violent, abusive and controlling.”

Detective Nole agreed to speak with us.  From what he was provided to review he confirmed the exam did not detect deception. But that was far as he would go. He says he told Haas to pass this along to McAllister’s lawyer.  “Let’s see how confident they are.  Tell them, ‘Let Joe test you.’”

But even more importantly, Nole, like any good polygrapher, cautioned Haas:  Don’t rely on this polygraph to make any decision.  They are not that reliable.

Haas told none of this to the court when he moved to drop the charges.

Haas notified SL by email that he was turning loose the man she says raped and beat her.  In that email, he said he believed her, though the very next day he would tell the court he had to believe McAllister because of the polygraph.

We were not sure how to write the conclusion to this series of reports on how Michael Hass dumped a rape case and its victim. Then it was provided for us. Just as we were struggling for the right closing words we received an email from SL’s brother.  He wrote to let us know that SL was filing a complaint against Haas with the Washington State Bar Association.

[This article has been edited since initial publication for clarification and to correct typographical errors]