Justia Washington Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review was whether under the State Constitution article I, section 7, an officer may search an arrestee's backpack as a search incident to arrest when the arrestee was wearing the backpack at the moment that he was stopped by police, but not at the time he was arrested several minutes later. When Officer Erik Olson stopped and seized Antoine Brock, he had Brock remove the backpack he was wearing and placed it where Brock could not readily access it. After a period of questioning, the officer arrested Brock and then searched the backpack. Ten minutes elapsed between the time Olson separated Brock from his backpack and the arrest. The trial court denied Brock's motion to suppress the evidence taken from the backpack. The Court of Appeals reversed. Under the facts of this case, the Supreme Court held that the backpack was a part of Brock's person at the time of arrest and that the search was valid incident to arrest. View "Washington v. Brock" on Justia Law

Julio Davila appealed the Court of Appeals' decision affirming his conviction for second degree murder. At issue was whether the State violated its disclosure obligation under "Brady v. Maryland," (373 U.S. 83 (1963)), when it failed to disclose the fact that a forensic scientist who analyzed certain DNA evidence used in Davila's case had been fired for incompetence. While the Supreme Court concluded that this evidence was both favorable to the defendant and suppressed by the State in violation of its Brady obligations, the Court also concluded that the evidence was not material to the outcome of Davila's trial, given the specific facts presented in this case. View "Washington v. Davila" on Justia Law

Jose Martines was involved in a car accident. Pursuant to a warrant, a blood sample was extracted from Martines after an officer suspected he was driving while under the influence (DUI). Martines was ultimately charged with felony DUI. He sought to suppress the blood test results showing the presence of drugs on the ground that there was no probable cause to show he was under the influence of drugs, as opposed to alcohol. The trial court denied Martines's motion, and a jury convicted him. The Court of Appeals reversed Martines's conviction, holding that the blood test was an unlawful warrantless search. The court reasoned that drawing blood and testing blood constituted separate searches, each of which requires particular authorization, and that the warrant here authorized only a blood draw. The State appealed. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated Martines's conviction, holding that the warrant authorized the drawing and testing of Martines's blood for both alcohol and drugs based on probable cause to believe Martines had committed a DUI. View "Washington v. Martines" on Justia Law

Petitioner Jerry Herron was charged with first degree rape while armed with a deadly weapon. Roughly a week and a half before trial, the trial court held an initial readiness hearing where it informed the parties that it typically used a jury questionnaire in sexual assault cases to discover sensitive information that might require questioning jurors individually. The court explained that in light of recent appellate court decisions, the practice of questioning jurors in chambers conflicted with Herron's public trial right. Thus, the court stated that "if there is any objection, I can't -- follow that procedure--." The prosecuting attorney advised that Herron would need to affirmatively waive his right to a public trial on the record in order to question jurors in chambers. Alternatively, the prosecuting attorney suggested that the court could question individual jurors in a public setting with the other jurors waiting in a separate room. Defense counsel responded that he would not object and that "if we're looking for an affirmative waiver of a public examination of these individual jurors, Mr. Herron and I are present, we're certainly willing to waive that. ... I think that's going to bear far more fruit than just simply a voir dire situation." At this point, the court inquired whether Herron understood the conversation and Herron replied that he did, expressly agreeing with the idea of conducting individual voir dire in the privacy of the judge's chambers. A jury was eventually empaneled, and Herron was found guilty of first degree rape while armed with a deadly weapon. The Court of Appeals affirmed Herron's conviction. Herron appealed, arguing the public's right to an open proceeding was violated. Finding that the Court of Appeals was correct in its ruling that Herron waived his public trial right and that he lacked standing to assert the rights of the general public, the Washington Supreme Court affirmed. View "Washington v. Herron" on Justia Law

Appellant Jonathan Gentry was convicted by jury of aggravated first degree murder of a 12-year-old girl in 1991, for which he was sentenced to death. His conviction was affirmed in 1995, and denied postconviction relief in 1999 and 2014. In 2011, Gentry moved for postconviction DNA testing, which was granted. After the DNA report on a bloodstained shoelace (that was admitted into evidence at trial) came back matching the victim's blood profile, the State moved to end further testing. In granting the State's motion, the trial court concluded that Gentry could not meet the substantive standard of RCW 10.73.170, which required a convicted person to show the likelihood that DNA evidence would demonstrate innocence on a more probable than not basis. The court concluded that the statute did not impose a presumption that further DNA testing will be favorable and exculpatory and held that, even with such a presumption, Gentry could not show probable innocence in light of the new inculpatory DNA test on the shoelace. Gentry appealed that judgment directly to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the trial judge acted within her discretion in determining that Gentry could not demonstrate probable innocence in light of the result of the DNA test on the shoelace, even assuming the remaining DNA evidence would have been favorable to him. View "Washington v. Gentry" on Justia Law

Petitioner Frederick Russell was arrested in 2001 for drinking and driving, which lead to a crash, killing two passengers and seriously injuring three others. He posted bail, but failed to appear at a pretrial hearing. He was eventually captured in Ireland and extradited back to the United States to stand trial. On each of the first two days of jury selection in this case, the trial judge, the attorneys, and petitioner held work sessions to review juror questionnaires and to separate the hardship juror requests from the others. These work sessions occurred in the jury room, rather than in the courtroom, and the trial court did not conduct a "Bone-Club" analysis on the record before holding the work sessions. The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review involved the question of whether reviewing jury questionnaires for hardship implicated the public trial right. Russell argued that the work sessions violated the public trial right guaranteed by article I, sections 10 and 22 of the state constitution and that his convictions should have therefore been reversed. The Court of Appeals rejected that contention, as did the Supreme Court. View "Washington v. Russell" on Justia Law

Sean O'Dell was convicted of second degree rape of a child committed ten days after his eighteenth birthday, for which he was given a standard range sentence of 95 months. On appeal, O'Dell raised two issues on appeal to the Supreme Court: (1) that the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on the affirmative defense of reasonable belief that the victim-here, a 12-year-old girl-was at least 14 years old or less than 36 months younger than O'Dell, based on the victim's declarations as to age; and (2) that the trial court abused its discretion when it refused to consider O'Dell's own relative youth as a basis to depart from the standard sentence range. After review, the Supreme Court rejected O'Dell's challenge to his conviction but remanded for a new sentencing hearing at which the trial court could consider whether youth diminished O'Dell's culpability for his offense. View "Washington v. O'Dell" on Justia Law

Timothy Conover was convicted of three counts of delivering heroin within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. The trial court imposed one 48-month standard-range base sentence on each count, to run concurrently with each other. It also imposed three 24-month school bus stop enhancements and ran them consecutively to Conover's 48-month base sentence and consecutively to each other (the total sentence was 120 months). The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether the school bus stop enhancement statute, RCW 9.94A.533(6), required the trial court to run such an enhancement consecutively only to the drug crime sentence it enhances or also required the trial court to run multiple enhancements on different counts consecutively to each other. The Court held that RCW 9.94A.533(6) did not require trial courts to run school bus stop enhancements on different counts consecutively to each other. "[I]nstead, when two or more offenses each carry school bus stop enhancements, the determination of whether those enhancements are to run concurrently or consecutively is also determined by resort to the rules in RCW 9.94A.589(l)(a)." The Court therefore reversed and remanded for resentencing with instructions to use RCW 9.94A.589 to determine whether the multiple 24-month sentence enhancements run concurrently or consecutively with each other. View "Washington v. Conover" on Justia Law

Roman Fedorov was arrested for attempting to elude law enforcement and driving under the influence. He was transported to jail for the purpose of administering a breath alcohol concentration (BAC) test. Fedorov asked for, and was granted, the opportunity to speak with an on-call defense attorney by telephone before consenting to take the BAC test, pursuant to CrR 3 .1. The Washington State Patrol (WSP) trooper, however, remained in the one-room jail, citing safety concerns and his need to perform a fifteen minute observation period before administering the BAC test. The trooper stood out of earshot at the far side of the room. Fedorov and his attorney chose to converse only in yes/no questions, fearing Fedorov would blurt out something incriminating. Fedorov argues that the presence of the trooper in the room violated his right to counsel because only with absolute privacy could the right to counsel be effective. The Supreme Court held that the rule-based right to counsel did not provide for a right to absolute privacy for conversations between attorney and client. "Once contacted, privacy between the arrestee and attorney may be balanced against legitimate safety and practical concerns, and challenges alleging such violations are reviewed under the totality of the circumstances." View "Washington v. Fedorov" on Justia Law

Roman Fedorov was arrested for attempting to elude law enforcement and driving under the influence. He was transported to jail for the purpose of administering a breath alcohol concentration (BAC) test. Fedorov asked for, and was granted, the opportunity to speak with an on-call defense attorney by telephone before consenting to take the BAC test, pursuant to CrR 3 .1. The Washington State Patrol (WSP) trooper, however, remained in the one-room jail, citing safety concerns and his need to perform a fifteen minute observation period before administering the BAC test. The trooper stood out of earshot at the far side of the room. Fedorov and his attorney chose to converse only in yes/no questions, fearing Fedorov would blurt out something incriminating. Fedorov argues that the presence of the trooper in the room violated his right to counsel because only with absolute privacy could the right to counsel be effective. The Supreme Court held that the rule-based right to counsel did not provide for a right to absolute privacy for conversations between attorney and client. "Once contacted, privacy between the arrestee and attorney may be balanced against legitimate safety and practical concerns, and challenges alleging such violations are reviewed under the totality of the circumstances." View "Washington v. Fedorov" on Justia Law