By C1 Staff
EVERETT, Wash. — If an inmate is found guilty of assaulting a corrections officer, he could be facing the rest of his life in prison under Washington’s “three strikes” law.
Herald Net reports that jurors will decide if inmate Jimi Hamilton was in his right mind when he broke several bones in the face of a Monroe corrections officer.
Hamilton is believed to be a seriously mentally ill inmate, and is housed in the Special Offender Unit at the Monroe Corrections Complex.
Hamilton is accused of attacking CO Nicholas Trout while Trout was standing at his post. Hamilton tackled and punched Trout, seemingly without provocation. The whole assault lasted seven seconds.
Kelly Canary, an attorney with the Snohomish County Public Defender Association, claims her client went into a “dissociative state” the day of the assault, where he believed he was defending himself against another inmate who told him to “never be a snitch in prison.”
Canary continued to say that Hamilton lost his grip on reality, fearful that he was going to be attacked after reporting that another inmate and female corrections officer were having a sexual relationship.
Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Cindy Larsen said that corrections officers reported that Hamilton was calm after the attack, and that he admitted that he had made a big mistake minutes after Trout was knocked unconscious. Before the assault, he wrote “coherent and logical grievances.”
Larsen explained that Hamilton was mad that Trout wouldn’t let him visit another area in the unit. He raced toward the officer, knocked him to the ground and wailed on him with both hands, according to her description.
A video captured the assault, but has not been released to the public.
Though Hamilton has been diagnosed with several different mental illnesses throughout the years, Larsen said that didn’t mean he didn’t know what he was doing.
“He was capable of forming intent,” she said.
Hamilton was originally given more than 14 years for bank robbery. He made the headlines before in 2007 when he married a former corrections officer the day before his sentencing.