Court Opinion

ID: 9632101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:02:56.765892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:08.754115
License: Public Domain

Hamilton, J.
(concurring)—I concur in the ultimate result reached by the majority, i.e., that respondent is presently entitled to hold the office of Sheriff of Klickitat County, to which he was duly elected by the voters of that county on November 8, 1966, some 3 years after the order of the superior court dismissing his earlier conviction. This result, in my view, does not spring from any sophisticated distinction laboriously drawn between pleas or verdicts of guilty and convictions, or between sentencing procedures. Instead, it seems to me, it flows rather effortlessly from the simple fact that the legislature has provided by RCW 9.95-.240, of the deferred sentence statute, that:
Every defendant who has fulfilled the conditions of his probation . . . may at any time prior to the expiration of the maximum period of punishment for the offense ... be permitted in the discretion of the court to withdraw his plea of guilty and enter a plea of not guilty, or if he has been convicted after a plea of not guilty, the court may in its discretion set aside the verdict of guilty; and in either case, the court may thereupon dismiss the information or indictment against such defendant, who shall thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense or crime of which he has been convicted. . . . Provided, That in any subsequent prosecution, for any other offense, such prior conviction may be pleaded and proved, and shall have the same effect as if probation had not been granted, or the information or indictment dismissed. (Italics mine.)
This statute is a legislative expression of public policy in the field of criminal law and rehabilitation. It undertakes, in unambiguous terms, to restore a deserving offender to his preconviction status as a full-fledged citizen. The only exception to the statutory release of all penalties and disabilities attendant upon a conviction is found in the proviso, which is not applicable in the instant case.
*238RCW 9.92.120 is likewise a legislative expression of public policy. It provides:
The conviction of a public officer of any felony or malfeasance in office shall entail, in addition to such other penalty as may be imposed, the forfeiture of his office, and shall disqualify him from ever afterward holding any public office in this state. (Italics mine.)
The language utilized by the legislature would appear to indicate that it equated the consequences provided by the statute with the term “penalty,” and the import of that term as generally recognized in criminal law parlance. And, it would also appear that the legislature contemplated that two distinct penalties would follow the criminal conviction of a public officer, i.e., (1) forfeiture of the office then held, and (2) disqualification from afterward holding any other public office.
In applying RCW 9.92.120, supra, this court has consistently held that an adjudication of guilt in the trial court immediately invoked the forfeiture feature of the statute, regardless of the possible outcome of any appeal from the trial court proceeding. State ex rel. Guthrie v. Chapman, 187 Wash. 327, 60 P.2d 245 (1936); State ex rel. Knabb v. Frater, 198 Wash. 675, 89 P.2d 1046 (1939); State ex rel. Zempel v. Twitchell, 59 Wn.2d 419, 367 P.2d 985 (1962); State ex rel. Carroll v. Simmons, 61 Wn.2d 146, 377 P.2d 421 (1962). This court has never, however, held that the future disqualification feature of the statute would survive and continue in effect despite a reversal of the conviction on appeal and an acquittal or a dismissal of the prosecution following the reversal. And, it seems somewhat unlikely that this court would so hold.
By analogy then, it seems to me that if the legislature in its wisdom sees fit to provide a statutory method by which all penalties and disabilities engraved upon a criminal conviction, save a specified one, may, under certain conditions, be wholly erased it ought logically to follow that the erasure embraces the disability of the future disqualification feature of RCW 9.92.120, supra. Certainly, had *239the legislature intended otherwise, it could have so stated in the proviso to RCW 9.95.240, supra.
The net effect, therefore, of an adjudication of felony guilt and the entry of an order of deferred sentence involving an individual holding public office should be the immediate forfeiture of that individual’s office and a disqualification from holding any public office during any probationary period and until such time as the individual qualified for and received the order of dismissal provided for by RCW 9.95.240. Thereafter, it would be my view that the restoration of citizenship rights accompanying the order of dismissal would and should restore the individual’s eligibility to run for public office, and if the voters, knowing of his former record, see fit to elect him to public office such should be their right. In this way RCW 9.92.120 and 9.95.240, and the respective policy considerations behind each, work in complete harmony.
The same harmonious accommodation would not, however, seem to follow the approach of the majority opinion; for, as I read the opinion, the majority’s reasoning leads to the probable continuation in office of a public official, who, after being adjudged guilty of a felony, receives an order of deferred sentence, which, incidentally, may or may not include a jail sentence as a condition thereof. This unusual result tends to defeat the wholesome purpose and policy of RCW 9.92.120 and, in my view, is a result which was never intended by the legislature. Furthermore, the majority, in drawing sustenance for its view from the distinctions between deferred and suspended sentences, unnecessarily projects a potential element of discrimination into sentencing procedures when a defendant happens to be a public officer. Again, I am sure the legislature never intended to foster such a development, and this court, by circuitous reasoning, should not be the father of that consequence. Instead, the facts and circumstances of each case should be permitted to channel and direct the trial court’s choice between a deferred, suspended or penal sentence rather than this court’s subtle suggestion that a *240convicted public official might escape forfeiture of office if he receives a deferred sentence.
For the reasons stated, I concur with the majority only in the conclusion that respondent—having been timely released from all pertinent penalties and disabilities flowing from his conviction—is not now disqualified from serving in the office to which he was elected by the voters of Klicki-tat County.
Finley, C. J., Neill, and McGovern, JJ., concur with Hamilton, J.