Justia Washington Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

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

The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review centered on whether, under either the state or federal constitutions, the information provided by multiple 911 callers was reliable and sufficient to justify an investigatory Terry stop of the car in which defendant was a passenger. Defendant Z.U.E. moved to suppress evidence of marijuana found on him following the stop, arguing that the officers lacked a reasonable basis to detain the car and its occupants. The trial court denied Z.U.E.'s motion, and the Court of Appeals reversed. In determining whether the information provided by a series of 911 calls provided the officers sufficient reliable information to justify stopping Z.U.E.'s car, the Supreme Court declined to strictly apply the two-pronged "Aguilar/Spinelli" analysis, but it recognized the two factors' relevance and usefulness to the reliability analysis. In this case case before us, the State did not establish that the series of 911 calls provided the officers with any articulable reason to suspect any of the passengers in this particular car were engaged in criminal activity. Therefore, the officers' subsequent seizure of Z.U.E. was therefore unlawful, and any evidence obtained as a result of that seizure should have been suppressed at trial. View "Washington v. Z. U. E." on Justia Law

At the conclusion of voir dire questioning, counsel exercised for cause challenges orally at the bench and subsequently exercised peremptory challenges silently by exchanging a list of jurors and alternatively striking names from it. All of voir dire, including the juror challenges, occurred in open court, on the record, and in full view of any observer in the courtroom. This issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether that method of challenging jurors after voir dire (a method commonly employed in trial courts around the state) violated the constitutional right to a public trial. After review, the Court held that the juror challenges in this case were exercised in a manner consistent with the minimum safeguards of the public trial right. View "Washington v. Love" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Robert Yates Jr. of two counts of aggravated first degree murder and sentenced him to death. The Washington Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in 2007. Yates filed this personal restraint petition, claiming that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at his trial. The Court found that personal restraint petitions must be filed within one year of a judgment and sentence becoming final (with certain exceptions). Yates filed his personal restraint petition seven years after his judgment and sentence became final. Since his petition did not meet any of the statutory exceptions to the one-year filing requirement, the Supreme Court dismissed it as untimely. View "In re Pers. Restraint of Yates" on Justia Law

Petitioner Chadwick Kalebaugh appealed his first degree child molestation conviction and claimed reversible error based on the trial judge's misstatements regarding the meaning of "reasonable doubt" in his preliminary remarks to the jury venire. Petitioner did not object, and raised the issue for the first time on appeal. The Supreme Court, in its review of the matter, reached the unpreserved error because it was a manifest constitutional error under RAP 2.5(a)(3). However, the Court affirmed because the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. View "Washington v. Kalebaugh" on Justia Law

Petitioner Michael Cates was convicted by jury on two counts of first degree rape of a child, and two counts of first degree child molestation. He was given a standard-range sentence for each conviction, all to run concurrently, resulting in 25 years of total confinement. He was further sentenced to three years of community custody upon his release and prohibited from contacting the victim. The prosecutor proposed a community custody condition that would have prohibited Cates from possessing or maintaining access to a computer without explicit authorization from his community corrections officer (CCO). Instead of the prosecutor's recommended condition, the trial court entered a modified condition providing, "You must consent to [Department of Corrections] home visits to monitor your compliance with supervision. Home visits include access for the purposes of visual inspection of all areas of the residence in which you live or have exclusive/joint control/access, to also include computers which you have access to." The Court of Appeals affirmed Cates' convictions and sentence in an unpublished opinion. Cates petitioned for the Supreme Court's review only as to the validity of the community custody provision requiring him to consent to home visits. Cates argued this condition violated article I, section 7 of the Washington Constitution. After careful consideration of the trial court record and petitioner's arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals' holding that petitioner's challenge was not yet ripe for review. View "Washington v. Cates" on Justia Law