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

Heading: The Community Placement Determination

Text: ¶ 21 The second reason identified by the United States Supreme Court in Apprendi for excluding a prior conviction related determination from a jury's consideration is that prior convictions have been established by procedures that satisfy constitutional due process and Sixth Amendment guaranties. Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 488, 120 S.Ct. 2348; accord Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 249, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 143 L.Ed.2d 311 (1999). In this case, Jones and Thomas do not challenge the fact that their status on community placement necessarily followed from a determination that they had a prior conviction. They also do not argue that the prior convictions from which the sentencing courts in these cases based their community placement determinations lacked constitutionally required procedural safeguards. ¶ 22 Rather, Jones, Thomas, and the dissent argue more generally that the community placement determination under Washington law involves too many variables to be equivalent to finding the mere fact of a prior conviction. Resp'ts' Answer to Pet. for Review at 9; see dissent at 645. In making this argument, they assert that because a sentencing judge may have to consider factors beyond the existence of the prior conviction and that because such considerations could be complex or even challenged, [8] [t]he procedural safeguards necessary to the prior conviction exception are not present in the community placement determination. Resp'ts' Answer to Pet. for Review at 10. Again, we disagree. ¶ 23 Similar to the determination of a fact or character of prior conviction, a sentencing judge can readily determine a defendant's probation status on the date he committed the present crime merely by reviewing court records relating to that prior conviction. Washington law specifies that in making the community placement determination, the sentencing court is limited in the type of evidence that it may review. It may rely on the judgment and sentence from the prior crime, the criminal history submitted, and those documents flowing from the prior conviction and sentence, such as the presentence report and department of corrections' records. See, e.g., RCW 9.94A.480, .500. ¶ 24 The sentencing court's review of the records submitted does not contemplate that the court will make an independent determination regarding the defendant's culpability with respect to the current offense. Instead, as was the nature of the sentencing court's review in this case, the community placement review simply consists of an examination of criminal history and a determination by the sentencing court of whether that record demonstrates that the defendant before him or her was or was not on community placement at the time he or she committed the current crime for which he or she is being sentenced. Like the inquiry associated with the fact of a prior conviction, this type of inquiry (1) is inherently reliable, (2) arises out of a prior conviction based upon a finding of guilt by a trier of fact or the defendant's guilty plea, and (3) is the type of inquiry traditionally performed by judges as part of the sentencing function. Accord United States v. Carrillo-Beltran, 424 F.3d 845, 848 (8th Cir. 2005) (A court must be allowed to determine not only the `fact of a prior conviction' but also those facts so `intimately related' to the prior conviction to [give meaning to] the Apprendi exception.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 1384, 164 L.Ed.2d 89 (2006); State v. Allen, 706 N.W.2d 40, 48 (Minn.2005) (given that the fact that defendant is on probation is analogous to the fact of a prior conviction and can be determined by reviewing court records relating to the prior conviction, constitutional considerations do not require [probation status] to be determined by a jury), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 1884, 164 L.Ed.2d 583 (2006). ¶ 25 Despite acknowledging that a defendant's community placement status is a determination about a prior conviction, Jones and Thomas argue, based on the United States Supreme Court's decision in Shepard, 544 U.S. at 25, 125 S.Ct. 1254, that the community placement determination is not the actual fact of a prior conviction and, consequently, is too far removed to have the conclusive significance of a conviction document. See Suppl. Br. of Resp'ts at 10. We are not persuaded that Shepard controls the precise issue before us. We say that because that case involved whether, under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), a later court could look to police reports or complaint applications in determining whether a guilty plea in an earlier criminal proceeding formed the basis for a conviction of generic burglary, thereby qualifying the defendant for a minimum 15-year sentence. Furthermore, the case was ultimately resolved as a matter of federal statutory interpretation. Shepard, 544 U.S. at 16, 125 S.Ct. 1254. However, to the extent that case applies, it favors our holding. ¶ 26 Not only did the United States Supreme Court in Shepard once again acknowledge the prior conviction exception, the Court also held that later sentencing courts may consider documents beyond the prior judgment and sentence to support prior-offense-based sentencing determinations. Specifically, the Court held that the sentencing court may make the relevant prior conviction determination by looking to the jury instructions, the charging documents, the plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented, and any comparable judicial record. Id. at 26, 125 S.Ct. 1254. It did say that police reports and complaint applications run afoul of Apprendi because disputed facts in those types of reports are too much like the findings subject to . . . Apprendi, to say that Almendarez-Torres clearly authorizes a judge to resolve the dispute. Id. at 25, 125 S.Ct. 1254. ¶ 27 Police reports and complaint applications are not at issue here. The record shows the respective sentencing courts reviewed the defendants' criminal history and community placement status, as contained in the presentence report, when determining whether each was under community placement at the time he committed the present offenses. This is the type of judicial inquiry that guarantees the conclusive significance that is the focus of Apprendi and that also contains the procedural safeguards established by the fact of the prior conviction. ¶ 28 In sum, because the community placement sentence determination is a determination about a defendant's status as recidivist, does not require the independent judgment of a fact finder about facts related to a defendant's commission of the current offense, and can be readily determined by a limited examination of the record flowing from the prior conviction, we conclude that a court, rather than a jury, may, pursuant to Almendarez-Torres, make, constitutionally, the former RCW 9.94A.525(17) community placement determination.