E. Hope battery trial resumes
SANDPOINT — The trial of a former East Hope Councilman accused of punching Mayor Jacob Both began Monday with the state calling eyewitnesses to the confrontation outside City Hall.
Daniel Burton Shanahan is charged with misdemeanor battery in connection with the July 12 incident.
A jury of four women and two men were presented with the state’s case in chief, which mostly consisted of eyewitness testimony and photographic evidence of bruising to Both’s chest. Monday’s proceedings drew to a close with Shanahan taking the stand in his own defense.
Direct examination of Shanahan, 35, is scheduled to resume today.
Special Prosecutor David Robins told jurors the evidence will show that Shanahan “violently” struck Both, capping an ongoing civil dispute over a newspaper delivery tube that Shanahan had argued was on property he was leasing.
Shanahan allegedly stormed out of City Hall and slammed the door, prompting Both follow him outside and demand that he refrain from such conduct in the future.
“The evidence will show that that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Robins, a Kootenai County deputy prosecutor who was assigned the case because Shanahan’s spouse is a Bonner County public defender.
Both testified that Shanahan wheeled around after being reprimanded and advanced on him.
“I figured he was going to clobber me so I put my hands up to protect myself,” said Both, 78.
Both told the jury that Shanahan ran into him, he dropped his guard and Shanahan threw the punch, which knocked him against the building.
City Clerks Christy Franck and Sandy Butler, both of whom said they witnessed the altercation, gave similar accounts, as did city maintenance workers Paul Deffenbach and Marty Lowell. Councilman Ed Butler, Sandy Butler’s husband, also corroborated the accounts.
But Shanahan’s defense counsel said during his opening remarks that Both was the aggressor during the confrontation and his client merely stiff-armed Both to deflect him.
Attorney Michael Palmer also emphasized that the dispute has more to do with political vengeance than the placement of a delivery tube. Shanahan defeated an incumbent during the 2009 election and was something of a young Turk who questioned the way business was being conducted at City Hall.
“Dan, to say the least, was not getting along with the good old boy’s and good old girl’s club in town,” Michael Palmer told the jury.
Shanahan resigned his position six months into office and believes the newspaper delivery tube was installed on his property for retaliatory purposes.
During cross-examination of state’s witnesses, Palmer drew out apparent inconsistencies between their written statements and their testimony. Palmer also accused a Bonner County sheriff’s deputy of conducting an investigation that enabled state’s witnesses to keep their stories straight.
When Shanahan took the stand, he told the jury he was the odd man out since taking office and his requests for even the most basic city records were continually rebuffed. On the day in question, Shanahan testified that Both charged toward him and grabbed him under the arms, prompting him to act defensively.
“I pushed both hands in the middle of his chest to clear (a defensive) space,” said Shanahan.