Court Opinion

ID: 9897947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-14 19:27:17.418912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:49.317689
License: Public Domain

FILED
                                                                   SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
                                                               In the Office of the Clerk of Court
                                                              WA State Court of Appeals Division III

      COURT OF APPEALS, DIVISION III, STATE OF WASHINGTON

In the Matter of Personal Restraint of       )         No.    38934-1-III
                                             )
       FRANKLIN D. DEAN, JR.                 )
                                             )
                                             )         ORDER GRANTING MOTION
                                             )          TO PUBLISH OPINION
                                             )
                                             )
                                             )

       THE COURT has considered the respondent’s motion to publish the court’s

opinion of July 27, 2023, and the record and file herein, and is of the opinion the motion

should be granted. Therefore,

       IT IS ORDERED, the motion to publish is granted. The opinion filed by the court

on July 27, 2023 shall be modified on page 1 to designate it is a published opinion and

on page 9 by deletion of the following language:

              A majority of the panel has determined that this opinion will not be
       printed in the Washington Appellate Reports but it will be filed for public
       record pursuant to RCW 2.06.040.

              PANEL: Judges Fearing, Lawrence-Berrey, Siddoway

       FOR THE COURT:

                                             ___________________________________
                                             GEORGE B. FEARING, Chief Judge
                                                                          FILED
                                                                       JULY 27, 2023
                                                               In the Office of the Clerk of Court
                                                              WA State Court of Appeals Division III

         IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
                            DIVISION THREE

In the Matter of Personal Restraint of       )         No. 38934-1-III
                                             )
Franklin D. Dean, Jr.                        )
                                             )         UNPUBLISHED OPINION
                                             )
                                             )
                                             )

       FEARING, C.J. — This personal restraint petition addresses another collateral issue

arising from the Washington Supreme Court’s landmark decision in State v. Blake, 197

Wn.2d 170, 481 P.3d 521 (2021). When an offender serves two consecutive sentences

for separate crimes, the first of which crimes was possession of a controlled substance,

may the time spent incarcerated for the drug crime be credited as time served against the

sentence for the second crime once the trial court vacates the drug possession conviction?

We answer in the affirmative and grant Franklin Dean’s petition.

                                         FACTS

       In May 2011, Franklin Dean pled guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled

substance. The Chelan County Superior Court waived imposition of a sentence within

the standard range and imposed a sentence under the drug offender sentencing alternative

(DOSA) program. The DOSA sentence ordered Dean to serve twenty-four months in

community custody while undergoing treatment for the possession charge.
No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

       In June 2011, while serving the DOSA sentence in community custody, Franklin

Dean committed a robbery and burglary. We refer to the two crimes collectively as a

“robbery.” Authorities placed Dean in the Chelan County Jail, where he remained until

his trial on the new charges. On August 6, 2012, a jury convicted Dean with robbery for

the criminal behavior in June 2011. Because of the new convictions, the superior court

revoked Dean’s DOSA sentence and imposed a twenty-four-month term of confinement

for the earlier crime of drug possession. The court also imposed a 180-month, or fifteen-

year, term of confinement for the robbery conviction and ordered the sentence to run

consecutively to the drug possession sentence. Because of the length of the sentences,

Dean transferred from the Chelan County Jail to custody with the Washington State

Department of Corrections (DOC).

       When DOC assumed custody, the Chelan County Jail sent DOC a certification that

Franklin Dean had served 475 days in jail under both the drug possession conviction and

the robbery prosecution. DOC ran Dean’s sentence for possession of a controlled

substance first and applied the jail’s time-served credits only to that sentence. Thus, it

credited all 475 days against the drug possession sentence. When accounting for the time

spent in the Chelan County Jail as well as good time credits, DOC ended Dean’s drug

possession sentence on August 24, 2012 and began his fifteen-year sentence for the

robbery conviction on the same date.

       In State v. Blake, 197 Wn.2d 170, 195 (2021), the Washington Supreme Court

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No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

held that Washington’s drug possession statute, which imposed strict liability, violated

the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions. The Supreme Court held

the statute void. Pursuant to Blake, Franklin Dean’s conviction for simple drug

possession has always been void. State v. French, 21 Wn. App. 2d 891, 894, 508 P.3d

1036 (2022).

       Following State v. Blake, the Chelan County Superior Court entered an order

vacating and dismissing Franklin Dean’s conviction for drug possession. The court’s

order partly read:

              The defendant shall be immediately released from any custody and
       from any supervision pursuant to this cause number [the drug possession
       prosecution]. The clerk’s office shall provide the Chelan County Regional
       Jail and the Department of Corrections with a copy of this order.

Resp. of the Dep’t of Corr., Biller Decl., Attach. E at 1. Thereafter, DOC gave Dean no

credit for time served, before August 24, 2012, against the robbery convictions sentence,

August 24 being the date on which its accounting for the drug possession conviction

sentence ended.

                                      PROCEDURE

       Franklin Dean filed this personal restraint petition, by which he seeks a ruling that

DOC must change his release date for the robbery conviction to account for the time he

spent confined beginning in June 2011 when law enforcement arrested him for the

robbery. Dean also filed a motion for immediate release, which this court granted. We

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No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

wrote:

                 The court has determined during its preliminary workup that Mr.
         Dean is entitled to relief in this matter. The court will release an opinion at
         a later date explaining its decision in this matter.

Order Granting Petitioner’s Motion for Release, In re Personal Restraint of Dean,

No. 38934-1-III (Wash Ct. App. Jan. 18, 2023).

                                   LAW AND ANALYSIS

         In response to Franklin Dean’s personal restraint petition, DOC argues that,

because under law, the offender must first serve time for the earliest conviction, it should

not credit Dean, against his burglary and robbery sentence, for time spent confined until

the drug possession sentence ended on August 24, 2012. In so arguing, DOC relies on

RCW 9.94A.589(2)(a), which declares:

                 Whenever a person while under sentence for conviction of a felony
         commits another felony and is sentenced to another term of confinement,
         the latter term of confinement shall not begin until expiration of all prior
         terms of confinement.

DOC insists on following this first in time statute despite the first conviction being

vacated and the law creating the crime of the first conviction being declared void.

         Franklin Dean cites Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 136 S. Ct. 718, 193

L. Ed. 2d 599 (2016), for the proposition that, when a “‘State had no power to proscribe

the conduct for which the petitioner was imprisoned, it could not constitutionally insist

that he remain in jail.’” 577 U.S. 190, 202 (2016) (quoting Desist v. United States, 394

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No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

U.S. 244, 261, n.2, 89 S. Ct. 1030, 22 L. Ed. 2d 248 (1969) (Harlan, J., dissenting)).

Dean would extend this proposition to require that, when an offender has served time

under a constitutionally voided conviction, that offender should receive credit on a

subsequent sentence of confinement.

       Franklin Dean also cites the proposition that an offender is constitutionally entitled

to credit for time spent in confinement prior to a sentence ordering confinement. State v.

Enriquez-Martinez, 198 Wn.2d 98, 101-03, 492 P.3d 162 (2021). He reasons that, since

he should have never been jailed for his possession of a controlled substance, all time in

jail beginning in June 2011 should be applied against his robbery conviction. Although

Dean’s two forwarded propositions do not directly address our issue, we rely on the two

propositions together with reason and fairness to grant Dean his requested relief.

       DOC first argues that it lacked authority to allocate credit to Franklin Dean’s

sentence under the Chelan County Superior Court’s order vacating and dismissing Dean’s

conviction for simple drug possession. DOC emphasizes that the court order did not

command subtraction of the simple drug possession confinement term from the robbery

and burglary sentence. We rejoin that the superior court order did not expressly prevent

DOC from crediting the time served against the robbery convictions.

       DOC asserts that it may not alter a judgment and sentence on its own. Dress v.

Department of Corrections, 168 Wn. App. 319, 326, 279 P.3d 875 (2012). We agree, but

deem no alteration of the judgment and sentence is needed to grant Franklin Dean relief.

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No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

Assuming the law demands an express modification, this personal restraint petition can

afford the change.

       DOC principally argues that it was required by RCW 9.94A.589(2)(a) to run

Franklin Dean’s sentence on the drug possession conviction first and to allocate

presentence time served credits only to that initial sentence. We disagree. The language

of the statute does not directly address Franklin Dean’s uncommon situation. The statute

does not foreclose DOC from granting Dean his requested relief.

       Related to its statutory argument, DOC underscores caselaw requiring presentence

incarceration credit be applied only to the first sentence served when an offender receives

multiple consecutive sentences. In re Personal Restraint of Costello, 131 Wn. App. 828,

834-35, 129 P.3d 827 (2006). DOC also cites cases disallowing credit for time served

when an offender is being held in confinement on an existing sentence while also

awaiting a sentencing decision on different charges. State v. Lewis, 184 Wn.2d 201, 205-

06, 355 P.3d 1148 (2015); In re Post-Sentence Review of Allery, 6 Wn. App. 2d 343, 347-

38, 430 P.3d 1150 (2018). The cited cases do not consider the present scenario, in which

Franklin Dean’s time-served credits were applied to a constitutionally voided conviction.

       Finally, DOC analogizes to State v. Jones, 172 Wn.2d 236, 257 P.3d 616 (2011).

When Cliff Jones was erroneously sentenced to 130 months of incarceration and thirty-

six months of community custody, he prevailed on a personal restraint petition and was

resentenced to fifty-one months of incarceration and thirty-six months of community

                                             6
No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

custody. Jones had already served eighty-one months of incarceration when he was

resentenced, exceeding his recalculated fifty-one-month sentence by thirty months. Jones

sought relief from judgment, arguing he should receive a thirty-month credit to his

community custody term. Our Supreme Court denied Jones relief. The high court

reasoned that Jones’ sentence of community custody was tolled during the extra thirty

months he spent in institutional confinement. The court’s holding rested on the

interpretation of various statutory sections governing community custody. Those statutes

do not control the outcome of Franklin Dean’s petition when Dean does not seek

application of credit toward a sentence of community custody.

       No Washington decision addresses our unique situation wherein authorities

confine the offender at the same time for more than one crime, at least one crime is

committed earlier in time, the court issues a sentence earlier in time for the first crime,

the court later sentences the offender for the second crime and runs the two sentences

consecutively, and the first in time conviction is later declared void. We assume this

situation will typically occur when the offender commits the second crime while on

community custody for the first crime and when authorities confine the offender at the

same time because of the violation of community custody and the commission of the

second crime.

       We envision the situation of the offender being confined for two convictions for

crimes committed on different dates, the offender receiving consecutive sentences for the

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No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

respective convictions, and the second conviction later being vacated. We expect that, in

such situation, DOC would release the offender when the sentence for the first conviction

expired. In other words, DOC would proceed as if the second conviction never occurred

and the offender received no sentence for the second conviction. Reason demands that

DOC should take the same action if the first conviction is later vacated and act as if the

offender received no sentence for the first conviction. Such action would compel DOC to

credit the offender for all time served since commission of the second crime toward the

sentence for the second crime.

       We note that, if Franklin Dean had not later been convicted of the June 2011

robbery, he would have not received any credit for time spent for the drug conviction

against another sentence. He would have served, in incarceration, the entire sentence

issued for the drug conviction. Also, if Dean were to be convicted of another crime in the

future, but had not been convicted for the robbery, we assume he would not be able to

subtract the time served for drug crime against any future sentence despite the drug

conviction being vacated. The time an accused spends incarcerated on a void conviction

does not accumulate in an abstract carceral time bank. One may wonder then why Dean

should receive credit for time spent on his possession of a controlled substance sentence

against his robbery conviction when he fortuitously committed the latter crime while on

community custody for the first crime. But we do not wish to perpetuate one injustice on

the basis that a similar injustice may occur.

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No. 38934-1-III
PRP of Dean

                                     CONCLUSION

      We grant Franklin Dean’s personal restraint petition and order DOC to assess

against the robbery conviction time spent incarcerated beginning in June 2011.

      A majority of the panel has determined this opinion will not be printed in the

Washington Appellate Reports, but it will be filed for public record pursuant to

RCW 2.06.040.

                                             _________________________________
                                             Fearing, C.J.

WE CONCUR:

______________________________
Siddoway, J.

______________________________
Lawrence-Berrey, J.

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