Opinion ID: 1124567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentence vs. Commitment

Text: Although this is a criminal case which resulted in a judgment, the statute applies by its terms only to the situation where there is also a sentence and a petition for postconviction relief. Sentence means the punishment formally pronounced by the court or judge upon the defendant after his conviction in a criminal prosecution.... Black's Law Dictionary 1362 (6th ed.1990). The sentencing laws in effect at all times material hereto link and limit sentence to conviction. See, e.g., RCW 9.92.010. On the other hand those adjudicated criminally insane pursuant to RCW 10.77 are not sentenced but rather committed. This distinction may make little difference to Mr. Well; however, it is firmly established in the law. The only time sentence appears in the chapter on the criminally insane is that section which provides when one is acquitted by reason of insanity such commitment or treatment cannot exceed the maximum possible penal sentence for [the] offense charged.... RCW 10.77.020(3). Thus, the Legislature has clearly distinguished between commitment and sentence with those incarcerated as criminally insane being members of the former, not latter, category. See State v. Sommerville, 111 Wash.2d 524, 534-36, 760 P.2d 932 (1988) (statutory distinction between criminal sentencing and mental illness commitment applied). This court has diligently maintained the distinction between commitment and sentence at the expense of broader rights to those committed on mental illness grounds. See, e.g., In re Young, 122 Wash.2d 1, 857 P.2d 989 (1993) (person committed as sex offender lacks rights of criminal defendant because the incarceration is civil and remedial in nature and is not punishment pursuant to a conviction and sentence). If the distinction between sentence and commitment were to be abandoned as illusory, it should be consistently so. In that event there would be no reason to distinguish the meaning of sentence for the purposes of the time bar statute and criminal sentencing statutes (e.g., RCW 9.94A) from mental illness commitment statutes (e.g., RCW 10.77). But the distinction has been abandoned neither by the Legislature nor this court.