Auburn Police Department officer Jeff Nelson sits in court in Kent on May 16, 2024. Nelson is charged with second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the 2019 death of Jesse Sarey. Opening statements in the case began Thursday morning, but the judge has already dismissed one juror over issues that were brought up before openings were set to start.
in 2018, which changed the requirements to hold officers criminally responsible for using deadly force. The new law removed the need to prove malice in order to prosecute officers. Now, juries must consider if another officer acting reasonably under the same circumstances would have believed the same use of force was necessary.
The juror told the court she met Simons in 1995 through their work in youth social services and answered questions about her previous Facebook posts, including one about the