Man sentenced for murder seeks to withdraw guilty pleas

EPHRATA — A Royal City man who pleaded guilty to the murder of a co-worker and attempted murder of another co-worker and was sentenced to over 48 years in prison is seeking to have his guilty pleas withdrawn.

Eduardo Ibarra Valencia, of Royal City, is petitioning the court to withdraw his previous guilty pleas to second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder in connection with the November 2015 murder of Joel Rodriguez, 49, of Quincy, and injury shooting of a Soap Lake man at Callahan Manufacturing in Royal City. Each of the two counts carried firearm enhancements.

Judge John Knodell went above the joint recommended sentence of 20 years and imposed an exceptional sentence of a little over 48 years in prison. Ibarra Valencia’s motion to withdraw his guilty pleas comes after Knodell denied the defendant’s insanity defense during a hearing on Nov. 13, 2017. In court filings Ibarra Valencia states Knodell struck down the insanity defense despite his attorney filing notice to use an insanity defense during a hearing on Aug. 28, 2017 and acceptance of an oral insanity plea entry during the same court hearing by Judge John Antosz.

Knodell ruled because Ibarra Valencia did not enter an insanity defense in writing within 10 days of his arraignment, which is required by Washington’s court rules, the defense is not applicable. After Knodell denied the insanity defense, Ibarra Valencia decided to accept a plea agreement from the state. He says he entered his plea on Nov. 20, 2017 based on “representations” from the state that his offender score was a two, not a zero, and he would receive 120 months for the firearm enhancements instead of 240 months.

The argument is that Knodell incorrectly used an offender score of two, instead of zero, which would have resulted in a lower standard range of sentence, when he sentenced Ibarra Valencia and he incorrectly imposed double the allowable time for the firearm enhancements. Ibarra Valencia said if he had known his offender score was a zero, instead of a two, he would have opted to head to trial.

“Had I known that my offender score was zero and not two, I would have proceeded to trial with the hopes of an acquittal or conviction of lesser included offenses and then arguing for a low end sentence,” reads court documents. “Subsequent to my guilty plea, I learned that an offender score of zero results in a substantially less standard range sentence than an offender score of two and had I know that was the range I would have gone to trial in hopes of being convicted of lesser degree charges with firearm enhancements.”

During a hearing on Tuesday Knodell stated if in fact Ibarra Valencia was misadvised and sentenced under the standard range of sentence for a person with an offender score of two, the withdrawal of the plea is “automatic.” No decision was made on the matter on Tuesday, as the state needs to go over the audio recorded during Ibarra Valencia’s past court proceedings to see if he was incorrectly advised about his offender score.

A May 8 court date has been set to further discuss the guilty plea matter and to address a motion filed by Ibarra Valencia to disqualify Knodell from hearing the case.