A man accused of raping a woman in Tacoma’s Wright Park has won his cold case appeal
A man accused of raping a woman in Tacoma’s Wright Park nearly a decade ago has won his appeal.
Jurors found Ronald Delester Burke guilty of second-degree rape by forcible compulsion for the attack.
The Washington State Court of Appeals reversed that conviction Thursday and sent the case back to Pierce County Superior Court for further proceedings.
The woman Burke allegedly raped died from an unrelated illness before Burke’s trial. She’s identified in court records by the initials KEH.
Burke argued that statements she made to a nurse about the attack should not have been part of the trial because he was not able to confront her as a witness.
The three-judge panel of Division II of the Court of Appeals agreed.
“KEH’s statements that she would have screamed but her assailant placed his hand over her mouth, that her attacker took her to the ground, and that her attacker lay on her was the key evidence of forcible compulsion — and the State heavily relied on this evidence when it discussed the forcible compulsion element in closing argument,” Judge Jill Johanson wrote for the panel.
Judges Rich Melnick and Lisa Worswick signed the opinion.
Burke, who is in his late 50s, argued it was possible that an intoxicated KEH had consensual sex with him and did not remember.
Pierce County prosecutors said they’re still deciding whether to ask the state Supreme Court to review the appellate court’s ruling. They have 30 days to decide.
The News Tribune’s efforts to reach the attorney who represented Burke in his appeal were unsuccessful Thursday.
Court records give this account of the investigation and Burke’s trial:
KEH went to the emergency room at Tacoma General Hospital early on July 3, 2009.
She said she had just been raped at the nearby park, and later that day a nurse gave her a sexual assault forensic examination.
The nurse spoke with KEH and collected DNA during the exam, which investigators matched to Burke several years later.
KEH died the month before investigators made the match.
Prosecutors asked that the woman’s statements to the nurse be allowed into the trial, since KEH could not testify.
Superior Court Judge G. Helen Whitener agreed.
The jury found him guilty, and in February 2017 Whitener sentenced Burke to 17 years, seven months to life in prison.
That meant the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board would have decided when or if he was released.
This story was originally published December 27, 2018 at 5:07 PM.
