High court overturns 3 hit-man convictions
An Arlington man convicted of trying to solicit the murders of his ex-wife and her family could see his prison term cut by half or more after a ruling Thursday by the state Supreme Court.
Even so, 42-year-old Mitchell Lee Varnell’s new sentence will likely still top 30 years for his 2003 conviction. A Snohomish County judge sentenced him to 190 months in prison for each of five counts and ordered that the sentences run back-to-back. Varnell’s sentenced totaled more than 79 years.
The justices, however, threw out three of those convictions in a 7-2 ruling that said prosecutors wrongly charged him with five crimes based on two efforts to hire a hit man: he first asked an employee of his excavation business and later an undercover detective, to kill his ex-wife, her parents and brother.
Snohomish County prosecutors charged Varnell with one count of soliciting murder for offering $50,000 to the employee to commit the killings after a bitter divorce in which he lost custody of his children. The worker went to Varnell’s ex-wife, who called police.
The other four counts stemmed from a single conversation he had with an undercover sheriff’s detective, who recorded Varnell’s effort to pay him $60,000 to commit the murders.
The legal question arose from this incident: Was it proper to charge Varnell with four counts of solicitation of murder based on this single conversation with the detective?
The justices decided that “number of victims is secondary.”
“No mention is made anywhere in the legislative history of the solicitation statute … that the legislature intended to punish a defendant multiple times for committing a single solicitation or conspiracy with multiple objectives,” wrote Justice Charles W. Johnson. To do so, the court ruled, would amount to trying him more than once for the same crime, which is barred by the Constitution.
In a dissent, Justice James Johnson argued that a separate crime occurred with each prospective victim.
“It will come as a shock to Varnell’s ex-in-laws to find out that Varnell hired a hit man to kill each of them … but can only be prosecuted for one murder-for-hire,” he wrote. By the reasoning of the majority, Johnson said, the others were “free targets.”
Still, two of Varnell’s convictions stand: one for asking his worker to do the killings, and the other one for asking the undercover detective.
“There isn’t much case law when it comes to this statute,” said Deputy Snohomish County Prosecutor Seth Fine. “It’s been an open question regarding how many counts you can charge. This ruling settles that.”
Varnell’s case will be sent back to the trial court, where Fine will ask that the judge impose consecutive sentences for the remaining two counts. “That’s still more than 31 years,” he said. “It is still a lengthy sentence.”
Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com