New charges in officer's fatal shooting

New murder charges were filed Tuesday against a man convicted of the 1994 slaying of Seattle police Officer Antonio Terry.

Quentin Ervin, already serving a 27-year prison sentence for second-degree murder in the shooting death of Terry, pleaded not guilty in King County Superior Court to new charges of aggravated first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, which could keep him behind bars for life if convicted.

Prosecutors were given a green light to pursue the new, more serious charges by a recent state Supreme Court decision.

On June 4, 1994, Terry stopped to help Ervin and his friend Eric Smiley, whose vehicle had broken down on an Interstate 5 offramp. Terry was in plainclothes when he was fatally shot with a bullet prosecutors said came from a gun fired either by Ervin or Smiley.

Smiley was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and was sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Ervin originally faced three separate charges: aggravated first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and second-degree felony murder — based on the commission of an assault during the crime.

A jury was required to deliberate each charge individually. According to the jurors' instructions, if they couldn't agree or found Ervin not guilty on one charge, they were to move on to the next, less serious charge. If they reached a guilty verdict for any charge, they were to stop.

Unable to come to a verdict on aggravated first-degree murder and then on the attempted first-degree murder charge after five weeks of deliberation, jurors finally convicted Ervin in 1996 of second-degree felony murder.

But in 2002, a Supreme Court ruling known as the Andress decision nullified Ervin's conviction by throwing out the law that covered the felony-murder crime. In Andress, the justices said that an assault leading to an unintended death cannot be a murder but instead must be prosecuted as manslaughter.

The state then decided to retry him on the first two charges — aggravated first-degree and attempted first-degree murder.

But Ervin's attorney argued that would be double jeopardy and was not allowed under state and federal laws, which prohibits people from being prosecuted twice for the same offense if they have been acquitted of the crime or if they have a conviction that remains in place.

The state Supreme Court in December ruled prosecutors could retry Ervin on the two charges.

Cheryl Terry, the widow of Antonio Terry, said Tuesday after Ervin's arraignment that although going through another trial would be difficult, she supported the new charges.

In other cases around the state, some similar to Ervin's, the effects of the Andress decision are still playing out.

The ruling overturned years of precedent and put into question hundreds of murder convictions. In King County, prosecutors have worked through most of about 100 cases affected, deciding to refile charges in some cases. Some defendants have entered into plea agreements — and in many of those cases will serve less time than they would have under their initial sentences.

Jerell Thomas, convicted in 2001 of second-degree felony murder in the Mardi Gras-riot death of Kristopher Kime in Seattle, pleaded guilty to lesser charges last year and received a sentence five years shorter than his original 15-year sentence.

Chayce A. Hanson, sentenced in 2001 to 25 years in prison for killing his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, will serve less than half that time after pleading guilty to lesser charges under a deal last year.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O'Toole said Tuesday that the state was planning to take Ervin to trial but that the possibility of a plea bargain in the case had not been ruled out.

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com