Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner Juan Enriquez-Martinez was in custody in Oregon, held on both Washington and Oregon pending charges. For his Washington conviction, he was denied credit for the time he spent in jail in Oregon on a variety of grounds. Finding none of those grounds availing, the Washington Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded for recalculation of the credit to which Petitioner was entitled on his Washington charges. View "Washington v. Enriquez-Martinez" on Justia Law

Reverend George Taylor was a long-time climate activist. Rev. Taylor has made many attempts to mitigate the risks of coal and oil trains passing through Spokane, Washington. After repeated efforts without effect, he organized a peaceful protest on Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF Railway) railroad tracks. As a result, Rev. Taylor was charged with criminal trespass in the second degree and unlawful obstruction of a train. In response, he raised the necessity defense. Rev. Taylor believed his actions were necessary to prevent the imminent harms of climate change and train derailment. Whether the necessity defense was ultimately available to him depended on when a defendant has demonstrated that there were no reasonable legal alternatives to violating the law. This case went before the Washington Supreme Court due to a conflict between Division Three and Division One of the Court of Appeals in Washington v. Ward, 438 P.3d 588, review denied, 193 Wn.2d 1031 (2019). Division Three issued a split decision affirming the superior court, holding that Rev. Taylor could not present the necessity defense because “[t]here are always reasonable legal alternatives to disobeying constitutional laws.” The Supreme Court found that whie there were always alternatives in the abstract, an alternative that repeatedly failed when attempted was not a reasonable alternative. Because Rev. Taylor raised an issue of fact whether his actions were reasonable under the necessity defense, given his previous ineffective efforts to exercise legal alternatives, the Supreme Court reversed on this issue. View "Washington ex rel. Haskell v. Spokane County Dist. Court" on Justia Law

Damarius Butts, Isaiah Obet, Charleena Lyles, and seven other people were shot and killed by law enforcement officers in King County, Washington in 2017. In response to community demands for greater police accountability, King County Executive (Executive) Dow Constantine issued a series of executive orders to reform the procedures for conducting coroner’s inquests. The King County Superior Court struck down those executive orders on various grounds, and nearly all parties appealed some aspect of that ruling. The Washington Supreme Court determined every party’s arguments had some merit and all prevailed to some degree. The Court held that the Executive’s authority to conduct coroner’s inquests included the power to establish the procedures by which those inquests are conducted, as long as those procedures are consistent with applicable state and county law. The Court therefore largely upheld Executive Constantine’s recent reforms. But the Court struck portions of the executive orders that the Families and the Law Enforcement Parties showed conflicted with state law, including those that would prevent inquest juries from fulfilling their duties under the Coroner’s Act. The Families were correct that the law required inquest juries be able to examine the involved officers and to decide whether those officers killed Butts, Obet, and Lyles by criminal means. Accordingly, the Supreme Court vacated the superior court’s order and remanded to grant in part the Families’ petitions for writs of mandamus. View "Family of Butts v. Constantine" on Justia Law

A valuable diamond was stolen from a jewelry store. Within days, Respondent Lynell Denham sold that diamond. Police suspected Denham committed the burglary and got a warrant for his cell phone records. Cell site location information included in those records placed Denham’s phone near the jewelry store around the time of the burglary. Denham contended the affidavits supporting the warrant for his phone records lacked specific facts that would suggest evidence of a crime would be found in those records. He also contended a video interview where he discussed sophisticated burglary techniques was improperly admitted. The Washington Supreme Court found the warrant application contained sufficient detail to conclude evidence of a crime would more likely than not be found in the cell site location information in telephone company records of Denham’s cell phones and that the video recordings were properly admitted. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and affirmed Denham’s convictions. View "Washington v. Denham" on Justia Law

Christopher Johnson was convicted of child sex crimes. He challenged a condition of community custody as unconstitutionally overbroad and vague: this condition would require Johnson to access the Internet only through filters approved by his community custody officer. The Washington Supreme Court determined that when read in light of Johnson’s convictions for attempted second degree child rape, attempted sexual abuse of a minor, and communication with a minor for immoral purposes, the condition was neither overbroad nor vague. Accordingly, judgment was affirmed. View "Washington v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Alan Jenks was sentenced to life without parole under the Persistent Offender Accountability Act (POAA), part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 (SRA). One of his strikes was second degree robbery, which was removed from the list of most serious offenses in 2019. ENGROSSED SUBSTITUTE S.B. (ESSB) 5288, 66th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Wash. 2019). The amendment came into effect after Jenks’ conviction, when his case was pending before the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals held that the amendment did not apply to his case and upheld his sentence. The Washington Supreme Court was asked whether ESSB 5288 could be applied to Jenks’ case. The State argued it could not due to RCW 9.94A.345 and RCW 10.01.040. The Supreme Court agreed with the State and held ESSB 5288 did not apply to Jenks’ case. “Although this outcome is harsh, the legislature commands this result.” View "Washington v. Jenks" on Justia Law

The issue before the Washington Supreme Court’s in this case was whether an individual’s YouTube channel qualified as “news media” for requests for certain records under the Washington Public Records Act (PRA). In 2014, Brian Green and Peter Auvil went to the County-City Building in Tacoma to file a document and pay a parking ticket. As they went through security, the guard asked to search Auvil’s bag. Auvil refused. A Pierce County deputy sheriff came to assist, and Auvil began to record a video of the interaction on his phone. Auvil continued to refuse to allow the security guard to search the bag, arguing that the security checkpoint was a violation of his privacy rights. The conversation escalated, and the deputy asked the men to leave. When Green stood too close to him, the deputy shoved Green and caused him to fall backward onto the floor. The deputy arrested Green for criminal obstruction and took him to jail. He was released approximately 24 hours later. The prosecuting attorney’s office dismissed the charge. In December 2017, Green e-mailed a PRA request to the Pierce County Sheriff’s public records office requesting “[a]ny and all records of official photos and/or birth date and/or rank and/or position and/or badge number and/or date hired and/or ID Badge for all detention center and/or jail personnel and/or deputies on duty November 26 & 27 2014.” A representative of the Sheriff’s “Public Disclosure Unit” sent 11 pages of records, but did not include photographs or dates of birth as requested, explaining that the information was exempt under the PRA. Green said he was “working on a story concerning the Pierce County Jail” and again signed his e-mail with the title, “Investigative Journalist.” Green claimed his 6,000-subscriber YouTube channel met the definition of “news media” under the PRA. The Supreme Court concluded the statutory definition of “news media” required an entity with a legal identity separate from the individual. Green did not prove that he or the Libertys Champion YouTube channel met the statutory definition of “news media,” and, thus, he was not entitled to the exempt records. Therefore, the trial court was reversed in part. The Court affirmed the trial court’s denial of Pierce County’s motion to compel discovery. View "Green v. Pierce County" on Justia Law

After attending multiple court hearings in his case for violating a domestic violence no contact order (DVNCO), Samuel Slater missed court the day his case was called for trial. The judge issued a warrant for his arrest, and Slater came to court to quash the warrant just over one month later. The State added a charge of bail jumping for his failure to appear (FTA). Slater moved to sever the charges, alleging that the charges were not cross admissible under an ER 403 and ER 404(b) analysis and that trying the charges together would cause him unfair prejudice and allow for improper propensity arguments as both charges included violation of a court order. Two different judges concluded that the FTA was admissible as flight evidence. Slater appealed, alleging that the trial court abused its discretion in not severing the charges as an FTA was not automatically admissible to infer consciousness of guilt, and that the prosecutor committed misconduct during closing. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Washington Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, reversed the convictions, and remanded for the two charges to be severed. “Missing one court hearing does not rise to the level of flight evidence from which one can infer consciousness of guilt on the underlying crime. The judges in this case abused their discretion when they repeatedly denied Slater’s motion to sever the charges because the charges are not cross admissible. Further, although we need not reach this issue, the admission of the FTA as evidence of consciousness of guilt allowed the prosecutor to capitalize on the admission and to make improper comments regarding Slater’s alleged guilt and propensity to violate court orders. This impropriety could not have been cured by a jury instruction and the pretrial rulings effectively allowed the improper arguments during the State’s closing arguments.” View "Washington v. Slater" on Justia Law

This case concerned a conflict between Tacoma Municipal Court Judge David Ladenburg and the presiding judge of that court, Judge Drew Henke. Judge Ladenburg petitioned the Washington Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus or prohibition against Judge Henke, directing her to withdraw an order of consolidation she issued pursuant to General Rule 29 (GR 29). A threshold question for the Supreme Court’s review was whether a municipal judge, such as Judge Henke, was a “state officer” for purposes of article IV, section 4 of the Washington Constitution. The Court held a municipal judge was not a state officer, and therefore dismissed Judge Ladenburg’s petition. View "Ladenburg v. Henke" on Justia Law

The parent in this case, J.C., contended that the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) did not tailor its offer of services to accommodate her intellectual disability prior to recommending termination of her parental rights. “Understandable offers of services are essential to giving a parent a meaningful opportunity to remedy their parental deficiencies and preserve their parent-child relationship. … A termination is certainly erroneous where DCYF did not fulfill its duty to understandably offer services to the parent. Absent sufficient evidence proving that DCYF fulfilled this duty, it is not possible for a court to determine why efforts to reunite the family were unsuccessful. Perhaps the parent was unwilling or unable to remedy their deficiencies. Or perhaps the parent was capable of improvement but struggling to understand precisely what they must do. Both situations are frustrating and potentially devastating for those involved, but there is a world of difference between them.” In this case, the Washington Supreme Court concluded DCYF did not prove by clear, cogent, and convincing evidence that it made sufficient efforts to ensure that its offers of services were reasonably understandable to J.C. in light of her potential intellectual disability. It therefore reversed the order terminating her parental rights. View "In re Termination of Parental Rights to M.A.S.C." on Justia Law