Appeals panel hears challenge to admission of 'flight' evidence in State v. Little

Defense attorney Jared Steed told the panel that Mr. Little's convictions should be reversed because "evidence of flight was improperly admitted to show his flight and consciousness of guilt," arguing the Oregon trip was an explained and therefore irrelevant event, not the unexplained departure required to support a flight inference.

Steed argued the trial briefing preserved objections under multiple rules and asked the court to require the trial judge to have performed an ER 404(b) analysis where appropriate. "If we don't make that connection, then all we have is a trip to Oregon," Steed said, pressing that the nexus between the trip and the charged crimes was "simply too tenuous." A panel member repeatedly probed whether the defense's preserved claim rested chiefly in ER 401 (relevance) and whether ER 403 or 404 had been argued with sufficient specificity below.

The King County prosecutor, Samantha Kenner, responded that the court should affirm the convictions and that the defendant failed to preserve a 404(b) claim; she said the pretrial proffer made it reasonable for a jury to infer consciousness of guilt. "In the space of less than 24 hours, mister Little had shot the victims, fled the scene, cleaned and ditched the car... and then left for Oregon on an impromptu trip," Kenner said, summarizing the proffer the trial court relied on when admitting evidence. Kenner added that the defense did not present an undue-prejudice argument at the pretrial hearing, limiting the record on balancing under ER 403.

The panel's questioning focused on preservation and whether prevailing on ER 401 would resolve the appeal without reaching ER 403/404 questions. The court heard rebuttal arguments and discussion of case law (e.g., Freeburg, Slater) but did not issue a ruling at argument's close.