Opinion ID: 2582487
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Issues Raised by the Defendant

Text: ¶ 10 1. Plea Bargaining. Yates claims that, in light of the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's initial involvement in the Spokane County plea-bargaining process, Pierce County should have been barred from seeking the death penalty for the two murders that he committed in Pierce County. Yates contends that Pierce County's decision to seek the death penalty violated the doctrines of equitable estoppel and fundamental fairness.
¶ 11 On January 23, 2002, Yates filed a motion arguing that Pierce County should be equitably estopped from seeking the death penalty. The court ordered an evidentiary hearing. Because the parties anticipated that Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg would be testifying about events that had occurred when he was Pierce County's elected prosecutor, the court ordered that the evidentiary hearing be held before a visiting judge. After hearing testimony, Grays Harbor County Superior Court Judge Gordon Godfrey denied Yates's motion and issued findings of fact and conclusions of law. Yates now assigns error to the denial of the motion and, in particular, to the trial court's ruling that absent a challenge to his plea agreement entered in Spokane County, Mr. Yates could not seek to prevent the State from pursuing the death penalty in this case. Br. of Appellant at 2, Assignments of Error 2-3. Yates also assigns error to findings of fact 4, 5(a) and (b), 11, and 12. Id. at 2-3, Assignments of Error 4-7. ¶ 12 Factual Background. At the evidentiary hearing, the court heard testimony from Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Steven Tucker, former Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney John Ladenburg, and others. The testimony (and the court's unchallenged factual findings) established that Yates was arrested in Spokane County on April 18, 2000, and charged with the murder of Jennifer Joseph. On May 18, he was charged with the murders of seven additional Spokane women, as well as the attempted murder and attempted robbery of a ninth Spokane woman. Yates's public defender, Richard Fasy, began to pursue the possibility of `global resolution' discussions with the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorneys Office. Clerk's Papers (CP) at 2745, Finding of Fact (FF) 2. At a mid-June meeting of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (WAPA), Tucker, Ladenburg, and other county prosecutors met informally about Yates's case. Tucker testified that, following the meeting, he believed he had some measure of consent to handle the Pierce County murders because Ladenburg didn't say I couldn't handle them. 14 VRP at 649-50. Ladenburg testified that he never gave Tucker permission to handle the Pierce County cases and that he did not believe Tucker was seriously contemplating a plea resolution at that time. The trial court found that, [b]ased on the conversations at that meeting with the prosecuting attorneys, including John W. Ladenburg, and based on the prosecutorial protocol of handling multi-venue prosecutions in one venue, Mr. Tucker believed and had reason to believe that he had the authority to prosecute the Pierce County murders. . . . Mr. Tucker subsequently conveyed that understanding to defense counsel, Mr. Fasy. CP at 2745, FF 3. ¶ 13 After the WAPA conference, some media reports raised Ladenburg's concern that Tucker was seriously considering a Yates plea bargain. According to the trial court's finding, Ladenburg took the following action: When it became apparent to the Pierce County Prosecutors Office that Mr. Tucker was anticipating plea negotiations which included the possible elimination of the death penalty a phone conference was arranged between Mr. Tucker, Mr. Ladenburg, and other death penalty familiar prosecutors. . . . During that call, Mr. Ladenburg expressed his disapproval of Mr. Tucker's suggestion that he might plea bargain the death penalty in this case at this juncture. Mr. Ladenburg also told Mr. Tucker that if he was considering plea bargaining the death penalty Mr. Ladenburg would not allow Mr. Tucker to handle the Pierce County cases. During this phone call Mr. Ladenburg revoked any and all authority implied or otherwise that he had given to Mr. Tucker to prosecute or plea bargain the Pierce County murder cases that are the subject of this matter. Id., FF 4 (emphasis added). Ladenburg suggested that the call occurred within days of the WAPA conference. Tucker testified that it occurred on June 28. The trial court found that the discussions between Tucker and Yates's attorney became more `concrete' at the end of June: The window of time for these discussions was June 28 to July 17, 2000. Id., FF 2. ¶ 14 Despite the June phone call following the WAPA conference, [o]n July 1, 2000 Mr. Tucker made the decision to proceed with a plea agreement with the defendant and, on July 13, faxed to Ladenburg a draft plea agreement that included the Pierce County murders. Id. at 2746, FF 6. Three days later, Tucker faxed a letter to Ladenburg requesting written authorization to file the Pierce County cases in Spokane County. Id., FF 7. On the following day, Monday, July 17, 2000, Ladenburg notified Tucker by letter and voice mail that Pierce County would file its own cases in Pierce County. On that same day, Ladenburg's office filed an information charging Yates with two counts of first degree murder with aggravating circumstances. ¶ 15 After the Pierce County charges were filed, Tucker and Yates's attorney continued to negotiate a plea agreement for the 10 Spokane murders. Although the July 13 draft had required Yates to disclose the location of Melody Murfin's remains and to assist in locating the .25 caliber handgun he had used in some of the murders, Yates did not disclose the location of Murfin's remains until October 2000, and he never provided any assistance in the location of the .25 caliber handgun. Id., FF 6. On October 13, 2000, three months after Tucker's initial draft and the filing of the Pierce County charges, Yates and the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney entered into a plea agreement. The agreement provided that, in exchange for Yates's guilty plea to 13 counts of first degree murder (10 in Spokane County, 2 in Walla Walla County, and 1 in Skagit County), as well as 1 count of attempted first degree murder in Spokane County, the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney would not seek the death penalty. ¶ 16 Analysis. The doctrine of equitable estoppel is grounded in the principle that a party should be held to a representation made or position assumed where inequitable consequences would otherwise result to another party who has justifiably and in good faith relied thereon. Wilson v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 85 Wash.2d 78, 81, 530 P.2d 298 (1975). A party seeking the protection of the doctrine must establish three elements: (1) an admission, statement, or act inconsistent with the claim afterwards asserted; (2) action by the other party on the faith of such admission, statement or act; (3) injury to such other party resulting from permitting the first party to contradict or repudiate such admission, statement, or act. Id. Application of equitable estoppel against the government is disfavored. Dep't of Ecology v. Theodoratus, 135 Wash.2d 582, 599, 957 P.2d 1241 (1998) (citing Kramarevcky v. Dep't of Soc. & Health Servs., 122 Wash.2d 738, 743, 863 P.2d 535 (1993)). A party asserting equitable estoppel against the government must establish, in addition to the three elements set forth above, that equitable estoppel (1) is necessary to prevent a manifest injustice and (2) would not impair[] the exercise of governmental functions. Kramarevcky, 122 Wash.2d at 743, 863 P.2d 535. A party must prove all required elements by clear, cogent, and convincing evidence. Id. at 744, 863 P.2d 535. ¶ 17 As a threshold matter, Yates has provided no authority supporting the extension of the doctrine of equitable estoppel into the realm of criminal prosecutions. No Washington case has applied the doctrine to criminal cases, and federal authority exists discrediting such an application. In United States v. Anderson, 637 F.Supp. 1106 (D.Conn.1986), a case involving criminal prosecution for failure to file federal income tax returns, the court found no authority to support the defendant's contention that the doctrine of equitable estoppel may ever be invoked to defeat a criminal prosecution and observed that doctrines of equity, which typically can be invoked only by persons who have demonstrated their own `clean hands,' seem unsuitable for general incorporation into the criminal law. Id. at 1109. Likewise, in United States v. Alexander, 736 F.Supp. 968 (D.Minn.1990), the court rejected the argument  whether based on equitable estoppel or due process  that the government's delayed obscenity prosecution had to be foreclosed. The Alexander court noted that [n]o case has been cited to the court involving an equitable estoppel in a criminal prosecution and that, [i]n fact, authority exists for the proposition that it is inapplicable in a criminal matter. Id. at 993 (citing Anderson, 637 F.Supp. 1106). ¶ 18 We hold that a criminal defendant may not rely on equitable estoppel to challenge a plea agreement. Here, Yates attempts to use equitable estoppel to gain what amounts to specific performance of a promise allegedly made in the context of plea negotiations  that is, Pierce County's alleged promise not to seek the death penalty for Yates's murders of Mercer and Ellis. As this court recently held in State v. Bisson, 156 Wash.2d 507, 130 P.3d 820 (2006), specific performance of a provision in a plea agreement is available only where the prosecutor's promise was not susceptible to more than one meaning. Id. at 524, 130 P.3d 820. Given that a defendant is not entitled to specific performance of an ambiguous provision in the written plea agreement itself, a defendant certainly should not be permitted to invoke equitable estoppel as a means of gaining specific performance of a nebulous, disputed, unwritten agreement between two county prosecutors. A defendant's reliance on equitable estoppel in the plea-bargaining context would not only create some murkiness in our law governing plea agreements, it could well have a chilling effect on the plea-bargaining process itself, making prosecutors reluctant to engage in such negotiations. We conclude that case law and public policy foreclose a defendant's use of equitable estoppel to alter the outcome of the plea-bargaining process. ¶ 19 Even if we were to permit a defendant to rely on equitable estoppel to seek enforcement of a promise allegedly made during plea negotiations, Yates's equitable estoppel argument would be unavailing. The trial court properly concluded that Yates had failed to provide clear, cogent, and convincing evidence of the essential elements of an equitable estoppel claim against the government. CP at 2747, Conclusion of Law (CL) 1. [7] Ample support for that conclusion of law is found in the unchallenged factual findings (in particular, findings of fact 2-3 and 6-10), as well as in testimony establishing that by June 28 Ladenburg had notified Tucker that Tucker could not handle the Pierce County murders if his intent was to plea bargain the death penalty. The record contains no evidence that Pierce County ever promised Yates that it would forebear seeking the death penalty, nor does the record establish that Pierce County authorized the Spokane County prosecutor to include the Pierce County murders in a plea agreement eliminating the death penalty. Additionally, Yates has not identified any substantive evidence that he disclosed prior to July 17, 2000, in reliance on the alleged promises from Pierce County, and he has thus been unable to establish any consequential detriment or injury. Finally, Pierce County persuasively argues that estopping Pierce County from seeking the death penalty would impair[] the exercise of governmental functions by encroaching upon the sovereign right of the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney to determine how crimes within Pierce County should be prosecuted. Kramarevcky, 122 Wash.2d at 743, 863 P.2d 535; Br. of Resp't at 63-64; see State v. Bryant, 146 Wash.2d 90, 100-04, 110-12, 42 P.3d 1278 (2002) (Chambers, J., majority; Owens, J., dissenting) (holding that one county's prosecutor lacks actual or apparent authority to bind another county's prosecutor to an immunity agreement with a witness). We affirm the trial court's rejection of Yates's equitable estoppel argument.
¶ 20 In addition to appealing the trial court's denial of his equitable estoppel motion, Yates raises for the first time on appeal his claim that Pierce County's decision to seek the death penalty violated the guaranty of fundamental fairness inherent in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yates's argument is, in essence, that the doctrine of fundamental fairness entitles him to specific performance of Pierce County's alleged promise to forgo the death penalty. Even if we were to assume that Pierce County had offered to forgo the death penalty in exchange for Yates's guilty plea (and there is no evidence that Pierce County ever extended such an offer), the doctrine of fundamental fairness provides no basis for specific performance of that plea proposal. ¶ 21 In State v. Wheeler, 95 Wash.2d 799, 631 P.2d 376 (1981), this court considered as an issue of first impression whether a defendant was entitled to specific performance of a prosecutor's initial plea proposal. As the court unequivocally stated, [t]he weight of authority is that, absent some detrimental reliance by the defendant, the State may withdraw from any plea agreement prior to the actual entry of a guilty plea. Id. at 803, 631 P.2d 376. The Wheeler court explicitly rejected the notion that `the right to fundamental fairness embraced within substantive due process' required enforcement of a plea proposal. Id. at 803-04, 631 P.2d 376 (quoting Cooper v. United States, 594 F.2d 12, 18 (4th Cir.1979), abrogated by Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 104 S.Ct. 2543, 81 L.Ed.2d 437 (1984)). In the words of the Wheeler court, [a] defendant does not have a constitutional right to plea bargain, see Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 97 S.Ct. 837, 51 L.Ed.2d 30 (1977), and thus the failure to enforce a plea proposal, as opposed to an `accepted' offer, cannot violate substantive due process. Id. at 804, 631 P.2d 376. Accordingly, we reject Yates's argument because the doctrine of fundamental fairness is inapplicable to proposals made in the context of plea negotiations. [8] ¶ 22 2. Jury Selection. Yates contends that the trial court violated his federal and state constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury by granting the State's challenges to jurors 39, 52, and 74; by denying the defense's challenges to jurors 9, 29, 100, and 120; and by disallowing the defense's proposed voir dire questions regarding religious affiliation.