Justia Washington Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The State prosecuted petitioner David Gower for sex crimes against his 17-year-old stepdaughter S.E.H. In accordance with ER 404(b) and RCW 10.58.090, the State offered evidence that petitioner had committed other similar crimes against two other alleged juvenile victims, C.M. (his biological daughter) and J.K. (another stepdaughter). In a pretrial evidentiary hearing on the admissibility of that evidence, the trial court ruled it was all inadmissible under ER 404(b). But the trial court acknowledged that admissibility of that evidence under RCW 10.58.090 was a separate question and concluded that although the evidence of other sex offenses was inadmissible under ER 404(b), the evidence of the prior crimes relating to C.M. was admissible under RCW 10.58.090. In 2009, between the statute's enactment arid subsequent invalidation in 2012, the trial court admitted evidence of petitioner's prior sex offenses against him at trial. He was ultimately convicted. Because that evidence was improperly admitted and considered by the trial judge in finding petitioner guilty, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. View "Washington v. Gower" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented to the Supreme Court was whether the trial court erred in admitting evidence of a secretly recorded conversation between defendant William Kipp and his brother-in-law in violation of Washington's privacy act. Kipp was convicted of two counts of rape of a child and one count of child molestation in the second degree. Before trial, Kipp moved to suppress the recording, relying on the privacy act. The trial court ruled that the recording was not a private conversation and, therefore, not subject to suppression. A jury found Kipp guilty and he appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. After its review, the Supreme Court concluded that for purposes of the privacy act, when facts are undisputed, the question of whether a particular communication is private is a matter of law reviewed de novo. In this case, Kipp's conversation with his brother-in-law was private and therefore should have been suppressed. View "Washington v. Kipp" on Justia Law

Russell Homan was convicted of child luring. On appeal, Homan argued that his conviction violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process because the evidence was insufficient for conviction and that RCW 9A.40.090 (the Washington luring statute) was unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction due to insufficiency of evidence. The State appealed the reversal, and the Supreme Court granted review on the sufficiency of evidence issue. The Court declined to rule on the overbreadth issue because it would benefit from additional briefing and argument. The Court found sufficient evidence to find that Homan lured a minor and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to decide the overbreadth issue. View "Washington v. Homan" on Justia Law

At his arraignment in August 2012, Petitioner Peter Barton pleaded not guilty to a charge of rape of a child in the first degree. The court set bail at $250,000. The prosecutor asked for a condition requiring 10 percent of the amount to be deposited in cash with the registry of the court. Barton objected to the cash-only bail, and the trial court delayed consideration of the request. At a hearing the next day, the State asked the court to increase Barton's bail to $1,000,000 and direct that if Barton "should post bond that 10 percent of that be in cash." The judge entered an order setting bail at $500,000 and stating that Barton was required to execute a "bond with [sic] depositing 10% cash in the registry of the court." The issue this case presented to the Supreme Court centered on article I, section 20 of the Washington State Constitution and its mandate that criminal defendants "shall be bailable by sufficient sureties." Peter Barton's bail invoked Criminal Rule (CrR) 3.2(b)(4). Barton claims the trial court's order violated his guaranty to bail by sufficient sureties. The Supreme Court held that article I, section 20 meant a defendant must be allowed the option to secure bail via a surety, as distinct from cash or other security. To the extent the trial court's order disallowed this possibility, the Supreme Court vacated the trial court's order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Washington v. Barton" on Justia Law

In this case, the issue before the Supreme Court was whether a conviction must be vacated even if it were shown that eavesdropping (an "odious practice" when done between an attorney and her client), did not result in any prejudice to the defendant. In this case, the police detective eavesdropped on attorney-client conversations after the trial was complete and the jury had found the defendant guilty. Thus, while the conduct was "unconscionable," there was no way for the eavesdropping to have any effect on the trial itself. Further, the prosecutor submitted a declaration stating that the detective on the case never communicated any information about the attorney-client conversations to the prosecution. Upon review of this case, the Supreme Court held that eavesdropping is presumed to cause prejudice to the defendant unless the State can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the eavesdropping did not result in any such prejudice. In this case, the record did not provide enough information to make this determination, and the Court remanded the case for additional discovery. View "Washington v. Fuentes" on Justia Law

Petitioner Daniel Stockwell sought to withdraw his guilty plea to a 1986 charge of first-degree statutory rape. Petitioner's plea statement and judgment and sentence misstated the statutory maximum sentence. The Supreme Court held that in a personal restraint petition, a petitioner must show actual and substantial prejudice in a challenge to a guilty plea based on such a misstatement. Because petitioner failed to make this showing, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals. View "In re Pers. Restraint of Stockwell" on Justia Law

Jonathan Lee Gentry was convicted for the 1991 aggravated first degree murder of 12-year-old Cassie Holden and sentenced to death by a jury. One of the issues he raised on appeal was a claim that the decision to pursue a capital case against him, and the trial that ensued, was unfairly tainted by the specter of racial bias on the part of the prosecution. The Supreme Court rejected that contention, concluding in part that Gentry had not shown prejudice resulting from any misconduct. The Court's recent decision in "Washington v. Monday," (257 P.3d 551 (2011)), held that when a party shows prosecutorial misconduct based on racial bias, it is the State's burden to show harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt. Gentry brought a personal restraint petition in light of the Court's holding in "Monday." "While we believe the rule in Monday is critically important to our justice system, we conclude it does not qualify as a 'watershed' rule that can be applied retroactively." View "In re Pers. Restraint of Gentry" on Justia Law

Petitioner Alvin Witherspoon appealed his conviction and life sentence for second degree robbery. Because the robbery conviction was his third "most serious offense," he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release under the Persistent Offender Accountability Act (POAA) of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 (SRA). On appeal to the Supreme Court, Witherspoon: challenged the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial to convict him; argued he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel; and that his persistent offender sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Washington v. Witherspoon" on Justia Law

"TC" took a loaded gun from the home where his mother lived with her boyfriend, Douglas Bauer. The gun belonged to Bauer. TC brought that loaded gun to school in his backpack a few days after he stole it. The gun discharged as TC was rummaging in his pack at the end of the day. The bullet struck one of TC's classmates, and it seriously injured her. The State charged Bauer with assault in the third degree, alleging that he, "[w]ith criminal negligence, cause[d] bodily harm to another person by means of a weapon or other instrument or thing likely to produce bodily harm." Before trial, Bauer moved to dismiss, arguing that the facts did not support a third degree assault charge as a matter of law. The State argued that the statutory phrase "causes bodily harm" reached Bauer's conduct as a primary "cause" of the harm to TC's classmate. The trial court agreed with the State and denied the motion to dismiss but then certified the matter to the Court of Appeals. In a split decision, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's ruling. The Supreme Court agreed with Bauer, however: "Although causation in fact is the same in criminal and civil cases, legal causation is not. Our case law suggests that legal causation does not extend as far in criminal cases as it does in tort cases, and even our civil cases do not extend liability as far as the State seeks to do in this case. We therefore reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals." View "Washington v. Bauer" on Justia Law

Miguel Angel Villanueva-Gonzalez was convicted of second degree assault and fourth degree assault for attacking his girl friend. On appeal, he contended that his actions constituted one assault, and therefore two convictions violated double jeopardy. Finding that the legislature has not provided a definition of assault and the common law definition was ambiguous, the Washington Supreme Court was "guided by the many other jurisdictions that have treated assault as a course of conduct crime," and was "mindful of the 'rule of lenity,'" which required the Court to adopt the interpretation most favorable to the defendant. It therefore affirmed the Court of Appeals and held that Villanueva-Gonzalez's two assault convictions violated double jeopardy because the underlying acts occurred during the same course of conduct. View "Washington v. Villanueva-Gonzalez" on Justia Law