A man convicted of second-degree murder deserves a new trial because a judge improperly barred the public from jury selection, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Brightman, 19 at the time, claimed in court that his gun accidentally fired while he was pistol-whipping Villa in a parking lot at a waterfront Tacoma park in October 1998.

After the shooting, court records say Brightman took the money, fled the scene in Villa's vehicle, threw the pistol off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and ditched the car, which was later burglarized by Brightman's friends.

Brightman appealed his conviction, contending his right to an open trial was violated because the trial judge told lawyers that observers were to be kept out of the courtroom during jury selection, to avoid "a problem in terms of security."

The state Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, saying there was no record that Pierce County Superior Court Judge Gary Steiner's directions were enforced.

"A closed jury selection process harms the defendant by preventing his or her family from contributing their knowledge or insight to jury selection and by preventing the (potential jurors) from seeing the interested individuals," Justice Bobbe J. Bridge wrote for the court.

The appeals court's ruling that there was no evidence of the closure being enforced was incorrect, the justices said, because there is a strong presumption that such an order is fulfilled and the state did not prove otherwise.

Brightman also argued on appeal that Steiner improperly refused to instruct jurors that murder can be justified when resisting a felony, including robbery, or in cases of self-defense.

The Supreme Court sided with the judge on that issue, saying Brightman's version of the facts applied more properly to a contention of excusable accidental homicide, not a justifiable killing.

_ Ruled that a local volunteer firefighter is not considered a city employee under the state's Industrial Insurance Act, and can pursue a civil suit for injuries suffered during an emergency call.

The case revolved around Jill Doty, a volunteer firefighter for the town of South Prairie, who filed suit against the town after she was injured while on a call.

The town claimed Doty could not sue because of protections in the insurance law covering government workers, but the Court of Appeals favored Doty. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in an unanimous decision.

This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow.

This is cache, read story here