State Of Washington v. Korey Taylor, 68459-1

Background

Victim Richard Werts was injured in an October 2010 yard altercation at his Edmonds home involving a rake; facts about how the injury occurred were disputed at trial.
Police responded, took statements, photographed and seized the rake, and Werts received hospital care; some disputed factual assertions about scene processing were raised later.
Korey Taylor was charged with third degree assault; on the first day of trial the State added second degree assault and deadly weapon enhancements.
On the morning trial began, Taylor asked to replace court-appointed counsel with a privately retained attorney and requested a continuance; the court denied the request.
A jury convicted Taylor on both counts and found deadly-weapon special verdicts; the court later dismissed the third-degree conviction and sentenced Taylor on second-degree assault with a deadly-weapon enhancement.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Taylor)	Defendant's Argument (State / Trial Court)	Held
Right to retained counsel of choice	Denial of day-of-trial request to substitute retained counsel violated Sixth Amendment; court failed to find undue delay	Request made morning of trial, no counsel identified or retained, continuance would affect speedy-trial and witnesses; court properly balanced interests	Affirmed: denial was not an abuse of discretion; court considered relevant factors and did not arbitrarily insist on speed
Failure to preserve/preserve exculpatory evidence	Police failed to document scene (rake location, photos, forensics), depriving defense of materially exculpatory evidence	Allegations not developed below; record shows photos taken; any potentially helpful evidence was not obviously exculpatory at the time	Rejected: claim inadequately developed and did not show evidence was materially exculpatory
Sufficiency of evidence re deadly-weapon possession	State failed to prove Taylor possessed the rake so as to support second-degree assault with deadly weapon	Eyewitness testimony (including victim) and expert medical testimony supported conclusion Taylor controlled and struck with rake	Affirmed: evidence sufficient when viewed in light most favorable to prosecution
Ineffective assistance of counsel	Trial counsel failed to investigate/pursue preservation issues, highlight lack of forensic evidence, or retain rebuttal experts	Decisions were reasonable tactics; no showing of deficient performance or resulting prejudice	Rejected: counsel not shown deficient or prejudicial; some claims undeveloped in record

Key Cases Cited

State v. Price, 126 Wn. App. 617 (2005) (abuse-of-discretion standard for motions to substitute counsel)
State v. Roth, 75 Wn. App. 808 (1994) (balancing defendant’s choice of retained counsel against public interest in timely trials)
United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140 (2006) (right to counsel of choice is distinct from right to effective counsel)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-prong ineffective-assistance standard)
State v. Wittenbarger, 124 Wn.2d 467 (1994) (prosecution duty to disclose and preserve materially exculpatory evidence)
State v. Salinas, 119 Wn.2d 192 (1992) (standard for sufficiency of evidence)