Court Opinion

ID: 9580495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:05:28.851233+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:18.734582
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part) — I concur that the time limitations contained in RCW 10.73.090 and RCW 10.73.100 withstand constitutional scrutiny. The Department of Corrections (Department) failed, however, to provide adequate notice to the petitioners of these new time limitations, contraiy to the notice requirement contained in RCW 10.73.120.1 therefore dissent. The Department's notices in these cases contained no information about the crucial 1-year "window of opportunity" or "grandfathering" period even though this was basically the only time period during which the petitioners could have presented their challenges. Moreover, the Department's act of posting its notices on various bulletin boards did not discharge the Department of its statutory responsibility under RCW 10.73.120 to attempt to inform "every person" within the statutory class of the new time limitations. (Italics mine.) The petitioners did not receive proper notice of these time limitations. Under this court's decision in In re Vega, 118 Wn.2d 449, 823 P.2d 1111 (1992), the petitioners should not be barred from presenting their postconviction challenges.
RCW 10.73.120 requires the Department to:
attempt to advise the following persons of the time limit specified in RCW 10.73.090 and 10.73.100: Every person who, on July 23, 1989, is serving a term of incarceration, probation, parole, or community supervision pursuant to conviction of a felony.
*455(Italics mine.) This statute specifically requires the Department to attempt to notify the designated class members of the time limits contained in RCW 10.73.090 and RCW 10.73-.100. The notices the Department issued in these cases failed to meet these explicit requirements.
RCW 10.73.090 involves two time limitations. The first is contained in the language of RCW 10.73.090(1):
No petition or motion for collateral attack on a judgment and sentence in a criminal case may be filed more than one year after the judgment becomes final if the judgment and sentence is valid on its face and was rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction.
The notices the Department issued in these three cases only provided information on this first time limitation.17
RCW 10.73.090, however, also contains a second, more important time hmitation. This limitation is contained in the statute's operative date. The Legislature promulgated RCW 10.73.090 on July 23, 1989, but the statute did not become operative until July 24, 1990. See RCW 10.73.130; Laws of 1989, ch. 395. This 1-year time period, from July 1989 to July 1990, is the 1-year "grandfathering" or "window of opportunity" period referenced in the majority opinion. See majority, at 449-51. The Legislature provided this 1-year period for individuals whose sentences had already become final prior to July 23, 1989. During this 1-year period, these individuals had the right to petition for postconviction relief without being barred from doing so by RCW 10.73.090.
The Department's failure to mention the 1-year "window of opportunity" period rendered the Department's notices in these cases statutorily defective. By only mentioning the *456first time limit and not the "window of opportunity” period, the Department's notices conveyed the misleading impression that RCW 10.73.090(1) barred anyone whose sentence became final 1 year prior to July 23, 1989, from filing any petition for postconviction relief. This misleading impression was reinforced by the Department's failure to also mention RCW 10.73.100 in its notices, the other statute the Department was explicitly required to mention pursuant to RCW 10.73.120. RCW 10.73.100 specifies the six circumstances when a petition will not be deemed untimely no matter when it was filed. If the notices in these cases had contained information about these six circumstances and the "window of opportunity" period, the notices would have been sufficient under RCW 10.73.120.
The Legislature required the Department to attempt to notify a specific class of individuals of the new time limits. Each member of this class has one thing in common: each was convicted of a felony prior to July 23, 1989. See RCW 10.73-.120. The sentences of many of these individuals, including each of the three petitioners, became final prior to July 23, 1989.18 The 1-year "window of opportunity" was basically these petitioners' only opportunity to seek collateral relief before their challenges could become untimely under RCW 10.73.090. This 1-year "window of opportunity" period was crucial for these petitioners, but the Department failed to mention this time period in its notices. These notices were statutorily defective, and did not discharge the Department of its statutory responsibility to attempt to provide notice to the petitioners.
This court determined in In re Vega, supra, that the Department must comply with the notice requirement before an individual's postconviction petition may be barred by the 1-year time limit contained in RCW 10.73.090. Vega, 118 Wn.2d at 451. In Vega, the petitioner was serving a federal *457prison sentence at the time the Legislature enacted the 1-year time limitation contained in RCW 10.73.090(1). The Department made no effort to attempt to notify Vega of these changes. The court held that Vega was not barred from raising his postconviction challenge because the Department did not comply with the statutory notice requirement. Vega, 118 Wn.2d at 451. Similarly, in these cases, the Department failed to comply with the notice requirement because its notices did not contain adequate information, about the time periods contained in RCW 10.73.090 and RCW 10.73.100. Pursuant to Vega, the petitioners in this case should not be barred from filing their challenges for postconviction relief.
The Department's method of merely posting the notice on various bulletin boards in general areas of a prison or a community corrections office, as in the case of petitioners Runyan and Kelly, also failed to meet the statutory requirement of notifying individuals of the relevant time limits. The record in these cases does not indicate how long the notices were posted on the bulletin boards, how accessible the posting locations were, or whether the notices were allowed to be obscured by other notices.
The plain language of RCW 10.73.120 requires the Department to "attempt to advise . . . [e]very person [within the designated class]". (Italics mine.) This language is unambiguous and "all inclusive". Vega, 118 Wn.2d at 450-51. The Legislature's use of the term "every person" requires the Department to make a meaningful attempt to advise each individual within the designated class of the relevant time limits, and this requires providing individual notice to each class member. The Department's act of merely posting notices on bulletin boards is insufficient to meet this requirement.
Both petitioners Runyan and Kelly were entirely within the Department's power and control during the relevant time period, making such individual notice practical and unburdensome. Petitioner Kelly regularly reported to his community corrections officer during the relevant time period. Petitioner Runyan was in the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy during the entire period in question. The *458Department knew it had a statutory duty to attempt to inform the petitioners of the relevant time limits. It knew precisely where they were located. No barriers existed to hinder the Department from individually providing notice to them. The Department could have easily provided actual, individual notice instead of merely constructive notice.
The majority concludes the notification statute only requires the Department to make a good faith effort to notify the statutory class members, and that constructive rather than actual, individual notice is sufficient in these cases. However, in my view, any good faith effort to inform a class member who was entirely within the Department's power and control during the entire time period at issue should logically have resulted in the individual receiving actual notice of the time limits. No barriers existed to providing individual notice in these cases.
In fact, the record indicates that many members of the statutory class received individual notice from the Department. For example, each inmate at the Washington Corrections Center at Shelton and at the McNeil Island Corrections Center, which both house male inmates, received individual copies of the notice. See Affidavit of Kurt S. Peterson, Superintendent, Washington Corrections Center, at 2-3; Affidavit of William L. Callahan, Superintendent, McNeil Island Corrections Center, at 1-2. Each inmate at the Twin Rivers Corrections Center, including petitioner Graham, aláo received individual notice from the Department. See Affidavit of Janet Barbour. However, crucial information regarding the time limits was not contained in Graham's notice. No rational reason can justify why the women inmates at Purdy, such as Runyan, were not entitled to the same individual notice that was available and readily provided to the male inmates at such places as Shelton and McNeil Island. The Department's failure to provide individual notice to Runyan and Kelly, while providing such notice to many others, was entirely arbitrary and unfair.
*459In imposing the time limitations at issue in these cases, the Legislature limited an individual's ability to challenge the legality of his or her criminal conviction and sentence. These limitations have an impact on the liberty interest of those who were sentenced under the prior version of the statute, which imposed no time limitation. The Department failed to provide meaningful notice of these changes to the petitioners, contrary to the notice requirement contained in RCW 10.73.120. The petitioners' challenges should therefore not be barred by RCW 10.73.090, and their petitions should be decided on their merits. I therefore dissent.
Utter and Smith, JJ., concur with Johnson, J.
Reconsideration denied August 3, 1993.

The Department provided to the court copies of the notices it used in each of these cases. See Affidavit of Dave Savage, Director, Division of Community Corrections, Attachment B (petitioner Kelly); Affidavit of Janet Barbour, Superintendent, Twin Rivers Corrections Center, Attachment A (petitioner Graham); Affidavit of Eldon Vail, Superintendent, Washington Corrections Center for Women, Attachment A (petitioner Runyan).

Petitioner Kelly's sentence became final in 1991. However, his prior convictions, which were used to calculate his offender score, all became final prior to 1989. Kelly's personal restraint petition challenges the validity of these prior convictions.