Opinion ID: 2626447
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Fact v. Law

Text: ¶ 33 The majority acknowledges that it is for a judge  not a jury  to decide whether the facts of a crime are sufficiently substantial and compelling to warrant an exceptional sentence. Majority at 800. But the majority blurs the distinction between factual findings relegated to the jury and legal conclusions properly left with the judge, referring confusingly to factual conclusions. Majority at 801. [4] This assertion is sure to worsen confusion among courts. The importance of the law-fact distinction is surpassed only by its mysteriousness.... [T]he distinction continues to bedevil courts and commentators alike. Ronald J. Allen & Michael S. Pardo, The Myth of the Law-Fact Distinction, 97 Nw. U.L. REV. 1769, 1769 (2003). ¶ 34 The majority's bedevilment is apparent from a lengthy footnote in which it strains to characterize a judge's legal reasons for exceptional sentences as factual determination[s]. Majority at 800 n. 3. One of the cases cited is State v. Cardenas, 129 Wash.2d 1, 914 P.2d 57 (1996). But that case actually undermines the majority's position. ¶ 35 In Cardenas, the defendant did not object to the factual findings of his victim's injuries, including broken bones, lost cognitive function and amputation of part of her leg, but objected only to their characterization as more serious than inherent in the crime. Id. at 6 n. 1, 914 P.2d 57 (emphasis added). We said that the determination of the underlying facts is a question of fact, whereas the determination of whether those facts justify an exceptional sentence is a question of law. Id. [5] The same reasoning applies here. Suleiman, like the defendant in Cardenas, did not dispute the underlying facts of his vehicular assault. Thus in this case, as in Cardenas, it was for the judge to decide how to characterize those already-determined facts for sentencing purposes. Furthermore, this court upheld Cardenas's exceptional sentence based on victim vulnerability although [t]he trial court made no specific findings regarding whether Cardenas knew or should have known of a risk to pedestrians before his vehicle struck the unsuspecting victim in her backyard. Id. at 12, 914 P.2d 57. Thus, we decided as a matter of law, in the absence of any factual stipulation or finding regarding the defendant's state of mind, that because the defendant was in a residential area he either knew or should have known that there would be people such as the victim here, totally unprepared and vulnerable. Id. Just as the underlying facts in Cardenas warranted an exceptional sentence without any stipulation or finding as to the defendant's knowledge of vulnerability, Suleiman's knowledge of Dwyer's vulnerability in this case is similarly established as a matter of law based on the underlying stipulated fact that she was powerless to escape from his car.