Court Opinion

ID: 9550401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:34:57.926188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:30.375965
License: Public Domain

Dolliver, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part) — I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which affirms the trial court's reimposition of the original sentence for defendant Gerry. I would allow credit for probationary time served.
The majority claims that to allow credit for time on probation represents a policy of criminal sentencing which should be made by the legislature. I agree. The legislature has already declared such a policy in RCW 9.95.060. That statute provides that, with certain exceptions not applicable here, "credit on a sentence will begin from the date the judgment and sentence is signed by the court."
In Gerry's case, judgment and sentence was signed in November 1972. Under the statute, credit on the sentence began to run at that time. Thus, Gerry's sentence expired in 1977, and the trial court erred when it imposed an additional 5 years of confinement. While I would allow the trial court to impose the balance of the remaining sentence after suspension has been revoked, the statute does not allow the court to ignore the 4-plus years in which Gerry reported to a probation officer and was under quasi-custodial supervision.
The majority has constructed an interpretation of RCW 9.95.060 which reaches a contrary result. In my judgment, *747such an interpretation does not follow from the plain language of the statute. But even if the provision is ambiguous, basic principles of justice and fair play require us to interpret it so as to allow a probationer to receive credit on his sentence for the time in which he complied with the conditions of his probation. As Judge Ringold observed regarding the quasi-custodial nature of probation:
The public tends to equate probation with leniency. Yet the constraints, obligations, and requirements imposed upon an offender's conduct as conditions of probation may often be more onerous than serving a term in a state institution. The decisions which the offender must make to cope with life in the community can be more painful and difficult than submitting to a regimented prison existence.
Ringold, A Judge's Personal Perspective on Criminal Sentencing, 51 Wash. L. Rev. 631, 632 (1976). In this case, Gerry had to comply with the conditions of his probation (including banishment from the community in which he wás residing), the parole/probation statute, and regulations promulgated by the Department of Social and Health Services for conduct of probationers. RCW 9.95.210. He fulfilled all those requirements until the last year of his 5-year sentence for possession of a controlled substance. To impose an additional 5-year restriction on his liberty violates fundamental principles of equity.
I would grant Gerry's personal restraint petition to allow credit for time served on probation while under a suspended sentence.
Utter, C.J., and Horowitz, J., concur with Dolliver, J.
Reconsideration denied November 21, 1979.