Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Manke denies allegations, awaits Hood's next court date
REARDAN—A local woman that was found guilty by a jury on four counts of fourth-degree assault, two counts of second-degree assault and one count of harassment with the threat to kill Jan. 18 is claiming the jury was influenced by her arresting officer. Brandy Hood, who was orginally arrested Jan. 21, 2020 by Reardan police chief Andy Manke after several incidents involving her two daughters, filed a motion for a re-trial in Superior Court Tuesday, Jan. 28, according to court records.
The jury found Hood guilty of physically and emotionally assaulting her two daughters several times and threatening to kill the eldest following an argument in Jan. 2020 at her home on the 300 block of West Cottonwood Avenue, records state.
Hood was scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 25. However, her defense attorney, Douglas Phelps, asked for a continuance to Feb. 15, saying he’d be filing a motion for a re-trial. That motion came three days later, according to court records.
The motion includes affidavits from Hood, her mother Marie Thomas and boyfriend Brett Dreger. The affidavits assert that Manke influenced the jury by communicating with them during the trial, according to records.
Hood claimed that she saw Manke talking to potential jurors in the hallway during her trial and shaking his head up and down while looking at the jury during the trial. She said he did this mostly with the eventual jury foreman, Garrison Schmierer, records state.
Thomas and Dreger’s statements also asserted that Manke was nodding at the jury foreman, and Thomas said she saw Schmierer nod back to Manke, according to records.
She also said Manke and Schmierer were talking about the case outside the law library door following the jury’s verdict. Thomas said she asked “for a little respect for my family,” to which she alleged Manke said he “could talk about whatever he wanted now,” records state.
Thomas and Dreger both said they heard Manke, Schmierer and another juror saying “we should get together to make sausages,” while Dreger said he heard Manke say “you didn’t hear half of what went on in this case,” affidavit records state.
Manke was advised by the Lincoln County Prosecutor’s Office to not discuss the specifics of the allegations but called them “a last-ditch effort by a family that doesn’t care about the children involved and wants to avoid their daughter and girlfriend going into the prison system.”
“The allegations are a gross misrepresentation of the facts,” Manke said.
Phelps didn’t return calls for comment from The Times.
Presiding judge Dan B. Johnson will be the ultimate decision-maker on whether to accept Hood’s assertions of an influenced jury as grounds for a re-trial. That decision is scheduled for Feb. 15 at 10:30 a.m. If Johnson denies the motion for a re-trial, Hood’s sentencing will proceed as previously scheduled.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
Reader Comments(0)