PORT ANGELES — A trial date of March 12 was set today for the second-degree murder trial of Lauryn A. Last in connection with the Dec. 30, 2008, death of her newborn son by drowing him in a toilet.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams also set 1:30 p.m. Sept. 30 for county Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Troberg and defense lawyer John Hayden to file motions and for Williams to review the status of the case.
Williams set aside eight days for the trial.
“There are a whole passel of issues to raise” before the case goes to trial, Hayden told Williams.
Last, 19, of Port Angeles, was 16 when the county Prosecutor’s Office charged her as an adult with first-degree murder, a charge County Prosecutor Deb Kelly later reduced to second-degree murder.
The birth of Last’s son was the result of a sexual assault on her that occurred when she was 15 and living in Colorado, according to court records.
Williams ruled Wednesday that Last’s confession to Port Angeles police that she let her son drown after giving birth in a toilet would be admissible in her trial.
Earlier report:
PORT ANGELES — Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams ruled Wednesday that Lauryn A. Last’s statement to police that she let her newborn son drown Dec. 30, 2008, can be used during her trial for second-degree murder.
Williams will set a date for the long-delayed trial at a 9 a.m. hearing today, which is Last’s 19th birthday.
Williams’ ruling can be appealed to the state Court of Appeals.
Last’s lawyer, John Hayden, did not return calls for comment about the case Wednesday.
Williams’ ruling “allows us to proceed to trial,” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Troberg said.
“I don’t think that we could proceed to trial without her confession,” Troberg said.
“It would be tough to prove anything.”
If found guilty of second-degree murder, Last’s maximum sentence would be 18 years and four months.
Last was 16 when she signed a written waiver giving up her Miranda rights to remain silent and have a lawyer present at the outset of three interviews with police over more than three hours Jan. 2, 2009.
Hayden had argued that Last’s mental state was such that she could not make an informed decision about waiving her rights, while the prosecution disagreed.
“In order to suppress statements under Miranda, there must be some police action which amounts to improper coercion,” Williams said in a 26-page opinion.
“Here, the court cannot find that the police acted inappropriately in conducting their investigation and interrogation of Ms. Last.”
Last later told police she made statements to police that were incorrect and that she incriminated herself to have the interviews end, Williams said in his ruling.
“She indicated she was tired, scared, confused and ‘didn’t know what to do’ at the time,” Williams said.
“Ms. Last indicates that she finally just told the officers what they wanted to hear. . . . However, the question before the court is whether or not the answers she gave were the result of having her will overborne by police coercion.”
Port Angeles Detective Jesse Winfield and Detective Sgt. Steve Coyle conducted the interviews individually.
Winfield and Coyle “were polite, and the conversations with Ms. Last were conversational in tone,” Williams said.
Last was 15 and living in Colorado when she was impregnated by a friend of her mother’s, according to court records.
The man, who was 37, is serving time for the child sexual assault of Last and pressured her for two years before assaulting her, according to Last’s statement to police.
Her statement was recorded on a tape recorder and the transcript obtained by the Peninsula Daily News under a state Public Records Act request.
Three times Last waived her right to remain silent and have an attorney present and also signed a written waiver, according to the transcript.
Last gave several different versions of the infant’s birth, including that she tried giving the baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which by the end of the interviews she denied doing.
Some of the points in her final statements to police were:
Last said she was a sophomore at Choice School in Port Angeles, eight months pregnant and scared when she gave birth on the toilet at her father’s Port Angeles home.
She thought she just had a stomach ache before she sat on the toilet and the baby came out.
She said she heard the infant gurgle, saw the child move its arms and intentionally did not lift the baby out of the toilet.
Last said she placed the infant’s body in a garbage can.
The body was later found at a Tacoma garbage transfer facility.
The hearing on the admissibility of Last’s statements began in November and was continued several times, causing the trial date, last set for June 7, to be postponed pending Williams’ ruling.
During one of the hearings, Troberg called a psychologist to the stand who said Last had no “significant” emotional problems that would have prevented her from meeting the legal requirement for waiving her Miranda rights.
A psychologist called to the stand by Hayden said Last had complex post-traumatic stress disorder caused by traumatic events in her life.
Those events included childhood sexual and physical abuse and living in a home in which domestic violence was an ongoing occurrence.
Hayden said her mental condition made it impossible for Last “to make a knowing and intelligent waiver of her constitutional rights.”
At the time of the birth, Last was taking methadone pills six to seven times a day, Williams said.
Williams said the main issue was whether police coerced her into confessing.
“It may well be that she was not fully capable of exercising her Miranda rights, but her incapacity to do so was not the result of police action or coercion which overcame her ability to resist talking,” Williams said.
“The recorded interviews show Ms. Last as appropriately responsive to the questions asked and do not on their face indicate any impairment of mental functioning,” Williams added.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
