Opinion ID: 2565091
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Scope of the Prior Conviction Exception

Text: ¶ 14 The prior conviction exception arises from the United States Supreme Court's decision in Almendarez-Torres, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350. [7] There, the Court rejected the defendant's claim that his prior felony convictions were elements of his current crime which had to be pleaded in the indictment and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In reaching its conclusion that a prior felony conviction is a sentencing factor appropriate for the court's determination and not a fact issue for the jury to determine, the Supreme Court recognized that a defendant's recidivism is a traditional, if not the most traditional, basis for a sentencing court[] to increase the reoffender's current sentence. Id. at 243, 118 S.Ct. 1219. It indicated that were it to hold that the United States Constitution requires the defendant's recidivism be deemed an element of the petitioner's offense to be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, such a holding would mark an abrupt departure from a long-standing tradition of treating recidivism as `go[ing] to the punishment only.' Id. at 244, 118 S.Ct. 1219 (alteration in original) (quoting Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U.S. 616, 629, 32 S.Ct. 583, 56 L.Ed. 917 (1912)). ¶ 15 Some two years after its decision Almendarez-Torres, the United States Supreme Court decided Apprendi, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435. The Court revisited the role of recidivism in sentencing. It held unconstitutional a New Jersey hate crime statute that allowed the trial court to decide the truth of a racial bias motivation allegation under a preponderance of the evidence standard. The Court determined that the defendant was entitled to a jury trial, with a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of proof, on the question of whether the defendant was motivated by racial bias to commit the crime. In reaching its decision, however, the Court reaffirmed the Almendarez-Torres exception, noting that a prior conviction need not be determined by a jury because of the procedural safeguards attached to any fact of prior conviction and due to the traditional use by states of recidivism facts to provide for sentence enhancements. Although the Court of Appeals acknowledged here that it had no reason to question the prior conviction exception's continued viability, it held that the community placement question does not fall within the exception because it should be read narrowly to include only the mere fact of a prior conviction and should not include facts that flow directly from the fact of a prior conviction. Jones, 126 Wash.App. at 144, 107 P.3d 755. We disagree. ¶ 16 In our judgment, the prior conviction exception encompasses a determination of the defendant's probation status because probation is a direct derivative of the defendant's prior criminal conviction or convictions and the determination involves nothing more than a review of the defendant's status as a repeat offender. In this regard, the community placement conclusion does not implicate the core concern of Apprendi and Blakely  that is the determination does not involve in any way a finding relating to the present offense conduct for which the State is seeking to impose criminal punishment and/or elements of the charged crime or crimes. To give effect to the prior conviction exception, Washington's sentencing courts must be allowed as a matter of law to determine not only the fact of a prior conviction but also those facts intimately related to [the] prior conviction such as the defendant's community custody status. United States v. Moore, 401 F.3d 1220, 1225 (10th Cir.2005); accord United States v. Mattix, 404 F.3d 1037, 1038 (8th Cir.2005) (per curium) (pointing to Booker and Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 27, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005)) (Eighth Circuit notes that courts have long considered prior criminal history as a sentencing factor for a court to decide rather than a fact issue for the jury and that the Supreme Court has not changed that rule). ¶ 17 In support of our holding, we take note of and rely heavily upon the following considerations. First, former RCW 9.94A.525(17) is not an exceptional sentence statute and allows for a point to be added to the offender score only when the defendant is a recidivist. Thus, the statutory provision not only does not implicate exceptional sentences, it also falls squarely within the parameters of the prior conviction exception carved out by the United States Supreme Court. Accord Blakely, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (judicial fact finding permitted when establishing the standard range sentence). ¶ 18 Second, our holding is consistent with Washington law. Since the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981, chapter 9.94A RCW, was enacted, sentencing courts have permissibly engaged in judicial fact finding about a defendant's recidivism when arriving at a legal conclusion about the appropriate punishment to be imposed for the current crime. Accordingly, while the United States Supreme Court recognized in Apprendi that tension existed between the rationale of its underlying decision requiring a jury to find any fact that increases the maximum penalty for a crime and its rule permitting a court, rather than a jury, to determine sentence enhancements that are based upon a defendant's prior convictions, the Court declined to overrule its prior case law pertaining to recidivist sentencing provisions. Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 489-90, 120 S.Ct. 2348. We likewise decline to disturb the traditional role Washington's judges play when considering the import of a defendant's past unlawful conduct upon his current sentence. On this point, it is notable that another division of the Court of Appeals, Division Three, has recognized more recently that a sentencing court's determination of an offender's community placement status does not run afoul of Blakely because that determination falls within prior conviction exception. See State v. Brown, 128 Wash.App. 307, 116 P.3d 400 (2005) ( Blakely does not compel a jury determination of the fact that the defendant was on probation at the time of his current offense); State v. Hunt, 128 Wash.App. 535, 116 P.3d 450 (2005) (the exception for prior convictions encompasses whether an accused is on community custody at the time of his current offense). We agree with that court's reasoning. ¶ 19 Finally, our holding is also in line with numerous out-of-state and federal court decisions that have interpreted the Almendarez-Torres exception more broadly than did the Court of Appeals here. See United States v. Corchado, 427 F.3d 815, 820 (10th Cir.2005) (holding that the enhancement of a defendant's criminal history category based upon his probation status does not violate the Sixth Amendment), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 1811, 164 L.Ed.2d 546 (2006); State v. Stewart, 368 Md. 26, 791 A.2d 143 (2002) (the Almendarez-Torres exception covers questions related to recidivism, not merely the fact of a prior conviction); People v. Thomas, 91 Cal.App.4th 212, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 571, 579 (2001) (concluding that in terms of recidivism findings that enhance a sentence and that are unrelated to the elements of a crime, Almendarez-Torres is the controlling authority and that the language in Apprendi relating to the `fact of a prior conviction' should be read broadly to include all determinations involving recidivism); State v. Dixon, 346 N.J.Super. 126, 787 A.2d 211, 221 (2001) (`we read Apprendi as leaving to the judge, consistent with due process, the task of finding not only the mere fact of previous convictions but other related issues as well') (quoting United States v. Santiago, 268 F.3d 151, 156 (2d Cir.2001)). ¶ 20 In sum, contrary to Division One of the Court of Appeals' and Jones's and Thomas's narrow reading of the prior conviction exception, we read the Almendarez-Torres prior conviction exception to encompass facts that follow necessarily or as a matter of law from the fact of a prior conviction, such as the defendant's community placement status.