WENATCHEE — A jury on Friday found James Lawrence Jackson-Smith guilty of first-degree assault with a deadly weapon and first-degree kidnapping, but acquitted him of first-degree attempted murder.
Jackson-Smith, 33, was accused of attempting to strangle to death a Super 8 hotel employee May 20 in Wenatchee.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday in Chelan County Superior Court.
His minimum sentence range is about 168 to 215 months in prison, or about 14-18 years, according to Chief Deputy Prosecutor Ryan Valaas and defense attorney Jesse Collins.
First-degree attempted murder carried a minimum sentence of 15 years.
Valaas said he offered Jackson-Smith a plea deal of first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault with a recommended sentence of 75 months in prison, or a little more than six years.
When asked why Jackson-Smith turned down the plea deal and opted for a trial, Collins said, “I don’t have an answer for that. It’s his decision to make. All I can say is I presented him with that (plea deal) and he chose to decline.”
The 12-person jury deliberated from about two hours Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Friday.
After the verdict was announced, Jackson-Smith sat with his hands in his lap and stared at the floor as Judge Kristin Ferrera asked each juror to confirm their vote.
Witness testimony in the trial began Wednesday. Jackson-Smith, the defense’s lone witness, testified for about 90 minutes Thursday.
His version of events is in contrast to the 23-year-old hotel employee’s testimony Wednesday. She said Jackson-Smith approached her from behind and began choking her as she finished unclogging his toilet.
Jackson-Smith said the front desk clerk whom he’d called to his room to plunge his toilet attacked him shortly after he yelled at her to get out of his room and called her a sexist slur.
He claimed his shouts at the woman were ignored and that he turned around and felt something hit the back of his head. He said he reacted by hitting the woman before the two fought for several minutes.
Jackson-Smith was arrested May 20 — the day of the fight — on Highway 28 in East Wenatchee about an hour and a half after the assault.
He’s been held at the Chelan County Regional Justice Center since his arrest.
Valaas told the jury in his closing statement Thursday afternoon that Jackson-Smith spent the night preceding the assault unsuccessfully attempting to lure the hotel’s evening desk clerk into his room.
A “bad vibe” felt by the 20-year-old desk clerk was not passed along to the alleged victim because she was training a new employee and forgot, she said in her testimony Wednesday. Jackson-Smith contacted the alleged victim about 7 a.m. about a clogged toilet and she went to his third-floor room to help.
“James Jackson-Smith lured (the alleged victim) into his hotel room, attacked her viciously, restrained her and ultimately tried to kill her,” Valaas said.
Valaas described Jackson-Smith as a man who believes women have “no value.”
“The defendant doesn’t view women as persons, he views them as animals and objects,” Valaas said.
In his testimony, Jackson-Smith described throwing the alleged victim onto a bed and that she “popped up like a monkey.” When asked about previous experiences with women, he referred to one as a “hyena.” Jackson-Smith also testified that he called the hotel employee a sexist, derogatory term. In a jailhouse call, he referred to her with another slur.
The recorded jail phone call, made to his mother, was evidence introduced by the prosecution on Wednesday. In it, he said he wished someone would kill the hotel employee.
Collins said the call was placed weeks after the incident and explained that Jackson-Smith was venting his frustrations.
When asked to clarify the comment during his own testimony, Jackson-Smith said he didn’t actually want someone to kill the woman.
“Not killed. Maybe some really off-the-wall, stupid comedy thing like, oh you’re crossing the street one day and there’s some douchebag in a Hummer listening to ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It,’ playing Candy Crush on his cell phone, just not paying attention, slams into you,” Jackson-Smith said.
In his closing statement, Collins attempted to cast doubt on the prosecution’s argument that Jackson-Smith intended to kill the woman. In her testimony, she said Jackson-Smith had her “dead to rights” before he suddenly stopped choking her and the fight ended.
“How was he trying to kill her, assault her and give her serious bodily injury and kidnap her if he just stopped when she stopped (resisting) and lets her go,” Collins said.
He also questioned why the woman’s first call after the fight was to her manager and not the police.
Collins described the case as a “nightmare scenario for Mr. Jackson-Smith that ends with him being beaten, bruised, arrested and charged with three of the most serious crimes that we have in the state of Washington.”
Jackson-Smith spent his childhood between Michigan with his mother and Cle Elum, where his father lived until his death in 2012. In 2021, he was living with his mother in Oscoda, Michigan, where he worked for an auto parts manufacturing company. He traveled to Washington to attend his uncle’s funeral on May 16 in Leavenworth.
His stay in Wenatchee was prolonged on May 19 due to car problems, prompting him to book one more night at the Super 8.
