OLYMPIA — The Sequim boy who stole a van in a quest toward killing three Sequim High School football coaches has no state constitutional right to a jury trial, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court upheld a Court of Appeals ruling in the case of Azel Chavez.
Chavez was convicted in Clallam County as a juvenile in March 2005 of several counts, including attempted first-degree murder, first-degree robbery while armed with a firearm and second-degree assault while armed with a firearm and stealing a motor vehicle.
The previous October, Chavez, who was 14 at the time, plotted to kill three Sequim High School football coaches with whom he was angry over punishment he received at a football camp the previous summer.
Wearing camouflage and facepaint, Chavez pointed a loaded shotgun at his stepmother and demanded the car keys, then set off in his parents’ minivan from his Sequim home to the Sequim High School bus barn.
But he arrived two hours after the high school football team — including the three coaches — had departed for a game in Tacoma that day.
He was en route to Tacoma when the chase began, according to investigators at the time.
