KENNEWICK — A 42-year-old Pasco man will spend the rest of his life in prison after raping a woman in a motel room in July 2022.
Eddie James Davis’ September conviction for second-degree rape normally wouldn’t result in a life sentence, but a pair of convictions for assault means he must serve a mandatory life term.
The use of the sentence is relatively rare in Washington state — only 263 of about 12,000 current incarcerated offenders are serving prison terms for third strike convictions.
Tri-Cities Judge Jacqueline Stam sentenced Davis last week to life in prison without the possibility of parole under the state’s persistent offender statute.
The law, more commonly known as the “three strikes law,” is used for offenders convicted of three violent crimes, including first- and second-degree assault and first- and second-degree rape.
Defense attorney Peyman Younesi argued that the state hadn’t done enough to prove his client was the same young man convicted in 2000 in King County of a second-degree assault.
He argued that the names were similar, but didn’t match and there were no readable fingerprints on the King County judgment and sentence.
Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Astley said the prosecutor’s officer verified that the information was accurate. She pointed out that the difference between the names was one included a middle initial rather than the complete name. And the man in the King County case has same birth date.
Stam noted that Davis previously agreed in three prior cases that he had committed the assault. She found that was proof he was the same person.
Younesi said Davis plans to appeal his conviction.
While Davis did not speak and Friday’s sentencing, he has continued to maintain his innocence even after he was convicted by a jury. He talked with a Department of Corrections officials for a pre-sentencing report and said he had consensual sex with the woman.
The victim told police that Davis was acquaintance and that she’d gone to his hotel room at the Tahitian Inn in Pasco, according to court documents. Later, when contacted by police about an unrelated case, she told an officer that Davis attacked her.
Previous convictions
Davis has spent much of his adult life in and out of trouble with the law, starting when he was a juvenile with a conviction for third-degree assault in 1999.
The first of his two second-degree assault charges came the next year when a Tukwila police officer spotted him driving a stolen Plymouth Voyager van.
Officers tried to stop the van as it pulled into a parking lot and eventually Davis sped toward a Renton police car. The officer inside said she believed he was going to crash into her but he narrowly missed the car and another officer.
According to court documents, Davis fired a shot during his escape. Later, the van turned up abandoned but police dog found Davis nearby. He eventually pleaded guilty to taking a vehicle without permission and second-degree assault.
His next conviction which counted as his second strike was for a second-degree assault on Ninth Street in Pasco in July 2002. Investigators say Davis attacked a man he knew from school when they saw each other outside a party.
The victim fell and Davis started punching and kicking him in the head and upper body, according to court documents. The victim said the attack was unprovoked.
Davis later pleaded guilty to assault in December 2002 and was sentenced to about 2 1/2 years in prison.
Since then, other convictions have ranged from a misdemeanor assault with sexual motivations in 2006, violating protection orders in 2009 and 2011 and third-degree assault in 2012 and 2019.
His longest sentence came in connection with a 2011 charge for violating a no-contact order. He was sentenced at the time to nearly five years in prison.
