PORT TOWNSEND — There was a surprise candidate for drug court graduation in Jefferson County Superior Court last week, and she had some surprising words for the roomful of well-wishers who came to congratulate the two announced grads.
“Drug court is very near and dear to my heart because I come from a long line of alcoholics,” said departing county Prosecuting Attorney Juelie Dalzell on Thursday.
As the child of two parents who died of alcoholism, drug court “has been part of my recovery,” she said.
“Each time one of you gets close to your family again, it heals a little part of me.”
With that, Judge Craddock Verser read out Dalzell’s officially sanctioned “dismissal with prejudice” — the same document other grads got — and Dalzell’s days in drug court were over.
By the end of the day, her 12 years as elected prosecutor also were over.
The early-morning ceremony is always a party for drug court grads with family, friends, former grads and counselors and supporters from Safe Harbor Recovery Center.
This time, officials and staffers from throughout the courthouse also gathered to mark the occasion, bringing flowers, gifts, hugs and praise.
The fuss came as a surprise for Dalzell, who’d asked her staff to do nothing special.
Off-the-cuff, she cracked, “I think being a prosecutor is as much fun as you can have with your clothes on” and brought the house down.
Dalzell, 63, hadn’t intended to run for office when she graduated from law school. Disillusioned by an internship with a big firm, she hadn’t even intended to practice law.
“I hated it,” she recalled. “It wasn’t about the truth. I didn’t know anything about criminal law. It wasn’t my life.”
Dalzell found herself hunting desperately for work in Port Townsend after a divorce in 1988.
For a while, she worked three jobs, including court clerk, where “the salary was miserable.”
Then, she became a social worker for Child Protective Services and got some intense exposure to child abuse and molestation cases.
“That’s when I decided I should put my law degree to use,” she said.
By 1994, she had become a deputy prosecutor in prosecutor Mark Huth’s office and decided to take a run at the job when he left it in 1998.
The way she tells it, she hasn’t looked back since.
‘Putting bad guys in jail’
“I love being a prosecutor,” she said, “putting bad guys in jail.
“It’s a good feeling knowing you’re providing safety for your community.”
The job hasn’t been without its low points.
Dalzell said she had “one argument” with former Sheriff Mike Brasfield that was unresolvable, and he ended up endorsing her opponent in the last election. She won anyway.
Dalzell declined to run for a fourth term in November and endorsed newly elected Scott Rosekrans, who was a deputy prosecutor in her office.
Dalzell said her worst mistake as prosecutor resulted in an accused criminal going free.
“I was in the middle of a rape trial, and I asked one question too many, and it ended in a mistrial,” she said.
The victim did not want to go through a second round of testimony, and Dalzell had to drop the case.
Dalzell said she doesn’t regret her decision to charge Rex E. Whipple, who was then Chimacum High School’s principal, with possession of pornography rather than with voyeurism, even though his 2006 conviction was reversed by the state Court of Appeals in May 2008.
Whipple was alleged to have taken photos and videos of a 15-year-old minor from outside her bedroom window at his former Port Ludlow home.
The Tacoma-based Division II Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision that the evidence against Whipple was insufficient to support the conviction on nine counts of possessing pornography, saying that to support such convictions, the law requires that a minor must be involved in a sex act intended to stimulate the viewer.
In August 2008, Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser ruled that Whipple’s name should be removed from the county’s list of sexual offenders, his DNA samples should be removed from the state database, and his court fees should be refunded.
Whipple already had served sentences of six months in jail and a year’s probation.
Dalzell said that since then, the state Legislature has changed the law.
The point upon which the reversal hinged — whether or not the girl was aware of the photography when it was taking place — was modified to say that the victim doesn’t have to be aware of the photography, she said.
“They call it the Whipple fix,” she said.
Broke glass ceiling
Dalzell said her proudest accomplishment is the fact that she, a woman, was elected prosecuting attorney.
“I love that I broke the glass ceiling,” she said, then thought it over and decided that honor should go to colleague Barb Carr, the first woman to become a probation officer in Jefferson County.
Carr, though, declined the honor.
“I cracked it; you broke it,” she said to Dalzell, laughing.
Dalzell said her plans for retirement include spending more time with her new husband, Jeff Chapman, her next-door neighbor for 27 years.
Their friendship extends well back into the time when both were still married to other people, she said, but blossomed into romance after Chapman, too, found himself single a few years ago.
After retirement
The two share a mutual interest in horses and horsemanship, and Dalzell also plans to beat the drum for an upcoming cross-state horseback event to raise funds for a pet cause.
She’s on the board of the Clemente Program of Bard College, a tuition-free opportunity for local adults to earn six college credits in philosophy, literature and history, and she’s enthusiastic.
It was her first philosophy course that ignited her own interest in learning, Dalzell said.
“I didn’t have any goals and took a philosophy course, and I was on fire,” she said.
“It was liberating to know that you can be creative and have opinions.”
Dalzell also plans to spend more time with her three grandsons by her daughter, Mimi Evans.
“It’s the best,” she grinned. “It’s so much better than being a parent.”
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Julie McCormick is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. Phone her at 360-385-4645 or e-mail juliemccormick10@gmail.com.