Defending Against Sex Crime Charges for Over Three Decades
Steve Thayer has been defending sexual assault cases in Southwest Washington since 1977. His career has included the successful legal defense of many high-profile cases, many of which received widespread publicity. Mr. Thayer defended the President of the Vancouver School Board in a very highly publicized case involving charges of rape of a child, child molestation, statutory rape, and indecent liberties in 1994. The case was tried twice, the first trial resulted in a hung jury, but the second trial resulted in a unanimous acquittal on all counts.
In 2000, Mr. Thayer was retained to defend the son of the Mayor of Vancouver against allegations of child molestation and rape of a child. The case was prosecuted in Vancouver and also in Woodland, CA, but ended with the dismissal of all charges in both states.
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A Track Record of Successful Legal Defense
Most recently, on August 10 2022 our 29 year old client was found not guilty of Rape and Sexual Assault by Strangulation with sexual motivation charges in a two day trial. He had to wait three and half years for his day in Court because of the pandemic. The irony is that the prosecutors office charged him even after he passed a polygraph before the case was ever filed.
On April 2010, Mr. Thayer won a motion to dismiss a charge of first-degree child molestation filed against a police officer in Skamania County. In Dec. 2010, he obtained dismissal of a first-degree child molestation charge for a volunteer fireman in Clark County.
In Feb. 2011, he won an acquittal for a college student charged with felony communication with a minor for immoral purposes in Clark County. Then, in April 2011, he won a motion to dismiss a case involving a high school band instructor charged with nine counts of sexual misconduct with a minor in the first degree in Clark County. He has also obtained jury acquittals for a variety of other teachers, professors, coaches, and others over the years in cases involving allegations of rape, date rape, indecent liberties, child rape, child molestation, incest, etc. A variety of attendant publicity can be accessed elsewhere on this website in newspaper and magazine articles describing some of those cases.
In recognition of these results and the results achieved in a variety of other criminal cases, Mr. Thayer has been AV-rated* by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, recognized in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, and selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers list by his peers in the survey conducted by Washington Law & Politics magazine for many years. If you require assistance in cases involving allegations of any of the following charges, please contact us today.
Defending Against a Wide Range of Sex Charges
- Rape
- Date rape
- Indecent liberties
- Indecent exposure
- Child rape and molestation
- Incest
- Communication with a minor for immoral purposes
- Sexual exploitation of a minor
- Federal and state child pornography charges
Getting Results in Federal and State Child Pornography Cases
Mr. Thayer has successfully defended a variety of child pornography cases in both the state and federal courts of western Washington. For example, he recently filed a motion attacking the search warrant in a child pornography case, arguing that it failed to establish probable cause as required by the Fourth Amendment. The court granted the motion resulting in the exclusion of all of the evidence seized as a result of execution of the warrant. This resulted in the dismissal of the case, saving his client years in prison.
Contact Steven Thayer Today
Call Vancouver sexual assault defense attorney Steven Thayer about any criminal matter. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.
*AV®, BV®, AV Preeminent® and BV Distinguished® are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies. Martindale-Hubbell is the facilitator of a peer-review rating process. Ratings reflect the anonymous opinions of members of the bar and the judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings fall into two categories – legal ability and general practice standards.