The criminal charge against Jay Wallace was dismissed, but the lawyering surrounding his case could linger on for years.

Wallace, a former Island County Sheriff’s deputy and candidate for sheriff, no longer faces a single gross-misdemeanor count of false swearing, which the state Attorney General’s Office charged him with last year for allegedly lying on an officer’s report.

Island County Superior Judge Vickie Churchill ruled in favor of Wallace’s motion to suppress evidence, ruling that his officer’s report can’t be used at trial.

“Under Garrity, I find this is a coerced statement,” Churchill said, referring to the landmark Supreme Court decision in Garrity v. New Jersey. In the case, justices found that statements officers were ordered to provide, under threat of discipline, could not be used against them in criminal court.

Since the case against Wallace was solely based on the report, both sides quickly agreed to dismiss the charge.

Afterward, a fired-up Wallace promised that he wouldn’t let the controversy die.

“Now it’s time for me to come after the people who brought this frivolous charge,” he said, apparently referring to former Sheriff Mike Hawley and others in the Sheriff’s Office.

An arbitration hearing is scheduled this summer for Wallace’s grievance regarding Hawley’s decision to fire him last April. Wallace previously has said he plans to file a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office.

The controversy surrounds a Feb. 7, 2006 incident in Freeland. Wallace was on duty and didn’t properly respond to two 911 calls from a woman who claimed she was held captive and sexually assaulted, the Sheriff’s Office alleged.

The Sheriff’s Office eventually dropped the assault case after the alleged victim disappeared.

Hawley, however, fired Wallace, accusing him of shirking his duty and lying in his officer’s report. In his conversations with dispatchers on the night of the incident, Wallace called the person inside the house “a guy” and referred to the individual as “he” or “him” nine additional times.

A neighbor who Wallace spoke to that night also claimed Wallace said he saw a man inside the house, according to the Oak Harbor Police Department.

In his report, Wallace wrote that he saw a naked woman inside the house and she didn’t appear to want contact.

Hawley turned over the investigation into Wallace’s alleged misconduct to the Oak Harbor Police Department and a detective found reason to forward the case to the Island County prosecutor with the suggestion that Wallace be charged with making a false or misleading statement to a public servant.

Fearing an appearance of a conflict, the prosecutor forwarded the case to the state Attorney General’s Office, where officials eventually charged Wallace with a gross misdemeanor.

Wednesday, Hawley — who now works as a lieutenant on North Whidbey — said the resolution in the criminal case doesn’t have any bearing on his decision to fire Wallace, which is a separate issue.

“The ruling was on the technicality of law and not the merits of the case,” he said. “The fact that both the Oak Harbor Police and the Attorney General of the state of Washington found merit in the case speaks for itself.”

Wallace, on the other hand, claims that Hawley trumped up the accusations against him as part of “an organized political assassination.” Specifically, he asserts that Hawley didn’t want him to win his bid for sheriff. Wallace announced his run for sheriff after Hawley said he wasn’t running again.

Wallace also verbally bashed the detective who investigated the alleged assault case, claiming that she lied.

The controversy undoubtedly affected Wallace’s political ambitions. He originally filed as a Republican candidate for sheriff, but switched to became the sole Democrat running for sheriff after the Republicans rejected him at their county convention. Wallace lost to the new sheriff, Mark Brown, in last November’s election.

“I appreciate the 9,006 people who stood behind me and knew the charges were false,” Wallace said, referring to the number of votes he received.

In court, Wallace’s attorney, Christon Skinner of Oak Harbor, similarly suggested that the action taken against Wallace was politically motivated. He called Hawley’s actions “highly unusual.”

In back-and-forth arguments between Skinner and Assistant Attorney General Scott Marlow, Skinner persisted that the Garrity decision protects Wallace from having his own statement used against him in criminal court because it was coerced under threat of discipline or job loss.

Skinner said the report was “basically an immunized statement” because his superiors ordered him to write it while an internal investigation into his conduct was ongoing.

“Do I give up my job, do I preserve my candidacy or do I give a statement…” Skinner said, characterizing the “untenable” choice Wallace faced. “In these cases, it’s simply not fair to use their statements to prosecute them.”

Marlow countered that Wallace was not asked to give a statement for the internal investigation, but for the completely separate investigation into the alleged sexual assault and kidnapping.

He said Wallace was told to give an officer’s statement about a crime, which is his responsibility to do as a member of law enforcement.

“Any lies he put in that statement is not protected by Garrity,” Marlow said.

Skinner, however, shot back that the statement was indeed protected because Wallace was twice ordered to give the statement and he was aware that an internal investigation had commenced. In fact, Wallace initially titled the statement as “internal investigation” before a superior told him to re-title it as an officer’s statement.

“You can’t change a zebra’s stripes by calling it a horse,” Skinner said.

After a short recess, Churchill announced her decision to grant Skinner’s motion in a brief statement. She gave a description of the Garrity ruling, pointing out that it protects everyone — not just police officers.

Churchill said her decision was based on the simple reality that Wallace was pressured into writing the statement by his superiors.

“Had he refused, he would have been subject to the loss of his job,” she said.

Marlow said it’s very unlikely he will appeal Churchill’s decision.

You can reach News-Times reporter Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611.