Special court to hear Chief Leschi case
Published 12:46 pm Thursday, December 11, 2008
By Teresa Herriman
The Courier-Herald
Call it history's "Law and Order."
Friday, a special Washington state court will begin hearing the case of Chief Leschi, who was convicted of killing a white militiaman in 1855. As most Plateau-area students will tell you, Leschi was tried and hanged for the murder of A.B. Moses, a volunteer colonel who was shot and killed in an ambush at Connells Prairie. A monument marks the spot where the ambush occurred.
Descendants and members of a group determined to exonerate Leschi have been working for years to give the chief a new day in court. Finally, after 146 years, the state Supreme Court has granted a new trial to decide if Leschi was wrongly convicted.
Leschi, a chief of the Nisqually Indians, was put to death in what historians say was the first recorded case of capital punishment in the Washington Territory.
Washington's Historical Court of Inquiry and Justice, a special court convened for this case only, will try the case at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. The court, comprised of seven active and recently retired Washington judges, will have no legal authority, but may provide a modicum of justice for Leschi's descendants and supporters.
The chief was hanged following two federal territorial court trials. The first ended in a hung jury. After the second trial, Leschi was hanged before a crowd of onlookers Feb. 19, 1858.
Sherwood Bonney, the namesake for Bonney Lake, was a member of the jury in the first case. Puyallup founder Ezra Meeker, a fellow juror, was said to have been the main backer of the chief and the reason for the deadlock. Neither man was a member of the second trial.
Questions have long been raised about whether Leschi was even at the portion of the Naches Trail where the ambush occurred. Others claim that, even if he did kill the man, he was a lawful combatant in the Indian Wars and should never have been charged with murder. The second jury was not instructed to consider the laws of war when the case was heard.
Teresa Herriman can be reached at therriman@cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/courierherald.
