TACOMA — The state Court of Appeals has overturned the 2009 conviction of an Oregon man who the court said tried to hire someone to kill his former teenage girlfriend from Sequim.
Aaron Hahn’s 2009 conviction of solicitation of trying to commit the first-degree murder of the girl could return to Clallam County for a retrial.
In a 3-0 opinion, the higher court Aug. 3 said it reversed the conviction because Clallam County Superior Court Judge George L. Wood denied defense attorney Ralph Anderson’s request for a lesser offense included in the jury instructions.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly was the prosecutor in the case.
“The court should have given instruction not only on solicitation of murder, but also solicitation of assault in the fourth degree,” said Anderson, a Port Angeles attorney.
Hahn, 31, of Gresham, Ore., is serving a 19-year sentence at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Anderson said.
Unless the state Supreme Court overturns the Court of Appeals, the case will eventually be sent back to Clallam County for a new trial.
Kelly said her office will seek review.
“I respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeals,” Kelly said in an email.
“I believe Judge Wood properly analyzed the evidence in refusing to give the defense’s proposed jury instruction for a misdemeanor crime.”
Hahn was arrested in the small southwest Washington city of Castle Rock in March 2008 and charged in Clallam County with four counts of third-degree child rape, sexual exploitation of a minor, possession of child pornography and stalking.
The girl — who is not identified because she was a juvenile when the crimes occurred — told investigators she began a three-year dating relationship with Hahn when she was 14 and he was about 25.
Court documents at the time said he threatened her after she ended the relationship.
She went to police after reading news reports about a Port Angeles woman who was killed by an ex-boyfriend.
Sequim police arranged a false meeting with the girl, then 17, to arrest Hahn.
A fellow inmate, Norman Livengood, told police that while in the Clallam County jail, Hahn asked him to help find a person to kill the girl before his trial.
Hahn eventually pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor as part of a plea deal for the sex crimes.
Livengood agreed to wear a microphone for recorded conversations with Hahn.
Livengood also provided Hahn with a phone number for State Patrol Detective Mike Grall, who pretended to be a hit man named Miguel.
Hahn told the undercover cop that he wanted the girl to “disappear,” court documents said.
The recorded conversations led to the solicitation-of-murder charge. Hahn was convicted in October 2009 in a case Kelly tried.
The Court of Appeals last week found evidence to support an inference that only a lesser crime of solicitation fourth-degree assault was committed.
“Hahn never directly said that he wanted [the girl] murdered,” Judge Lisa Worswick wrote in the published opinion.
“He stated only that he wanted her to ‘disappear,’ which, depending on the circumstances, could mean a number of things, including fourth-degree assault.
“Hahn also maintained throughout police questioning and at trial that he never intended to have her murdered and that he only thought ‘Miguel’ would only scare [the girl].
“The evidence here, when viewed in the light most favorable to Hahn, supports an inference that the lesser included offense of fourth-degree assault was committed.”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com