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State v. Cates
Court of Appeals Case No.:  68759-0-I
Supreme Court Case No.:  89965-7
Issue(s):

  1. A community corrections officer (CCO) may not search a probationer’s home or personal effects without a warrant unless the officer has reasonable cause to believe the probationer violated a condition of community custody or committed a crime.  Did the Court of Appeals err in affirming a community custody condition that requires Mr. Cates to “consent” to searches by his CCO, merely upon the CCO’s request, without specifying that the search must be based on reasonable cause?  Should this Court overrule State v. Massey, on which the Court of Appeals relied, which allows trial courts to impose community custody conditions that require probationers to submit to CCO searches without specifying that the search must be based on reasonable cause?  RAP 13.4(b)(4).

Continue Reading Petitions for Review – June 5, 2014

In State v. Jordan, a unanimous Washington Supreme Court ruled that a trial court properly increased a defendant’s prison sentence because he had been previously convicted of manslaughter in Texas, even though Washington has more forgiving self-defense laws than Texas.   The court held that sentencing judges may properly consider the fact that a defendant…

In State v. Andre Luis Franklin, five State Supreme Court justices reversed a defendant’s convictions after concluding the trial court erred in excluding evidence to further the defendant’s “other suspect” defense.  The defendant, Franklin, was in pseudo-relationships with two different women, Hibbler and Fuerte, and the women had a history of jealousy with one another.  Soon after Franklin loaned some money to Fuerte, Fuerte began receiving emails from an unknown email address threatening to post compromising pictures of her online.  These emails were purportedly from Franklin.
Continue Reading State v. Franklin – State Supreme Court Divided Over Discretion

The Supreme Court unanimously held in State v. Trochez-Jimenez (No. 88557-0) that Miranda and its progeny do not apply when a suspect requests an attorney during an interrogation conducted outside the United States by foreign authorities regarding a foreign crime. Based on that holding, the Court rejected Trochez-Jiminez’s argument that statements he made during custodial interrogation should have been suppressed. Given the lack of case law supporting Trochez-Jimenez’s argument, the Supreme Court’s holding is not surprising.
Continue Reading A Tough Day For Miranda Rights: Supreme Court Holds (1) That Miranda Does Not Apply To Interrogations Outside The United States By Foreign Authorities Regarding A Foreign Crime, And (2) That An Equivocal Invocation Of The Right To Remain Silent Is No Invocation At All

In the Matter of the Personal Restraint of Gomez, the Washington Supreme Court rejected a collateral attack on a mother’s conviction for killing her child through abuse. The Court ruled that the Spanish-speaking client did not deserve a new trial even though her lawyer only spoke English and also represented the child’s father in a dependency proceeding. Perhaps lost in translation or clouded by the lawyer’s conflicting duties to the father was the fact that the mother may not have abused the child and that the child might have died because he suffered epilepsy. Finality trumped process in this case and may have kept an innocent person in prison.


Continue Reading No comprende? No problema. Washington’s Supreme Court accepts poor performance by defense lawyer who didn’t speak the same language as his client

In Wilkinson v. Chiwawa Cmtys. Ass ‘n, the Washington Supreme Court determined that homeowners may offer their home to short-term vacation renters without violating community covenants restricting lots to single-family residential use.  In so holding, the Court looked to the full text of the covenants and found that the drafters anticipated short-term rentals by dictating the size of rental signage that residents could hang.  Though duration was absent from the discussion of rentals, the court held that “silence as to duration does not create ambiguity.”  If this language is picked up in future contract interpretation cases, it could provide useful clarification about the application of the context rule of interpretation announced by the Court in 1990’s Berg v. Hudesman and debated by lawyers ever since.
Continue Reading Vacationers Are Welcome, Property Restrictions Aren’t: Washington’s Supreme Court Narrowly Reads Covenants

The Washington Supreme Court unanimously held in In re Disciplinary Proceeding Against Robert B. Jackson (No. 201,017-2) that substantial evidence supported the hearing officer’s findings that Robert Jackson engaged in fraud, deceit, conflicts of interest, and other serious ethics violations and that disbarment was the appropriate sanction.
Continue Reading Stranger Than Fiction: Attorney Who Formed A Business Named, Of All Things, “RPC LLC” Is (Unsurprisingly) Disbarred For Repeatedly Violating The RPCs

The Washington Supreme Court unanimously held in State v. Medina (No. 89147-8) that petitioner Mario Medina was not entitled to credit for time served for five years of required service in two King County Community Center for Alternative Programs (CCAP): one that required Medina to report in person to the Yesler Building daily as an alternative to total confinement and one that required him to report only by phone. The Court’s statutory and double jeopardy analysis is neither controversial nor surprising. The equal protection analysis, in contrast, arguably misses the point, which is that differences in wealth necessarily lead to two sets of sentencing ranges: one for those who are able to procure pretrial release and one for those who cannot. Such a classification violates equal protection principles.
Continue Reading Defendants Are Not Entitled To Credit For Time Served For Required Pretrial Constraints By Statute, Equal Protection Principles, Or Double Jeopardy Protection Even Though Differences In Wealth Arguably Lead To Two Sets Of Sentencing Ranges.

Washington’s vested rights doctrine guarantees that a land development proposal will be processed under the laws and regulations in effect at the time a complete permit application is filed.  In Town of Woodway v. Snohomish County, the Washington Supreme Court confirmed that the vested rights doctrine applies even where land use plans and development regulations are later found to be invalid.
Continue Reading Vested Developer Rights Can Survive Even When Land Use and Zoning Laws Are Later Found Invalid

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