Court Opinion

ID: 9587488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:22:45.696439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:03.567481
License: Public Domain

Forrest, J.
(dissenting)—I dissent. For the reasons given in State v. Lessley, 59 Wn. App. 461, 798 P.2d 302 (1990), I believe the burglary antimerger statute (RCW 9A.52.050) applies and Mr. Dunbar should be punished for both the burglary and the kidnapping.6 The majority rejects application of the antimerger statute for two reasons.
First, the majority states that the antimerger statute does not conflict with the "same criminal conduct" portion *458of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 (RCW 9.94A-.400(1)(a)). The antimerger statute would permit the sentencing judge to punish Mr. Dunbar for the kidnapping.7 The majority interprets the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 (SRA) to say he cannot. This analysis creates a conflict between the statutes. The majority argues that there is no conflict because the purposes behind the SRA and the criminal code are different.
According to the majority, the purpose of the criminal code is to promote criminal responsibility for the class of crimes proscribed, while the purpose of the SRA is to promote individual responsibility for the crimes committed. Majority, at 456.8 I find this distinction unclear and unpersuasive.9 However, accepting the majority's interpretation *459of the purpose behind the SRA, I find it a very strange kind of "responsibility" that permits punishment of Mr. Dunbar for the kidnapping, yet proscribes punishment for the burglary of which he has been duly convicted by a jury. Similarly, accepting the majority's interpretation of the purpose underlying the criminal code, its view eviscerates the promotion of "criminal responsibility" by eliminating the adverse consequences of the defendant's burglary. This analysis conflicts with the antimerger statute which states that the defendant may be punished.
Interpreting the SRA to prohibit punishment for the burglary and the kidnapping in this case frustrates a major purpose of the legislation.10 As Professor Boerner states:
The first and overriding principle shaping the [Sentencing Reform] Act is retribution, or just deserts. The Washington Supreme Court correctly assessed the Legislature's intent when it said of the Sentencing Reform Act, "Punishment is the paramount purpose." . . . Proportionality between crime and punishment is fundamental to this principle, and its placement as the first stated purpose is significant. Proportionality operates to establish the core principle upon which the structure of sentencing under the Sentencing Reform Act is based.
(Footnotes omitted.) D. Boerner, Sentencing in Washington § 2.5(a), at 2-31 (1985).11
To give Mr. Dunbar the same punishment under these circumstances as he would have received if he had committed the first degree kidnapping and never engaged in the burglary is not proportionate treatment. Other than a small overlap in time, these crimes share little in common. Legally, the burglary herein was committed before the kidnapping commenced, although factually, as the majority *460notes, the kidnapping began while the burglary was still in progress. However, the majority of the time the defendant restrained the victim and, more significantly, the infliction upon the victim of extreme mental distress, which elevated the kidnapping from second to first degree, occurred at a different time and place. Indeed, if the kidnapping and burglary are encompassed in the same criminal conduct for purposes of sentencing as the majority holds, it would be logical to hold that either one could properly be considered an aggravating circumstance justifying an exceptional sentence.12 In view of the striking similarity of the offenses at issue in Lessley and the offenses at issue here, the different sentencing result reached by the majority does not fulfill the purposes of the SRA.
Second, the majority contends that State v. Collicott13 and State v. Collins14 have established a binding general rule that a burglary includes as the same criminal conduct the other crimes committed at or about the same time and place. There is language supporting that view.15 However, as the majority notes, Collicott should be read narrowly to apply to cases where the charging document relates the crimes and uses one to elevate the other to a higher degree. Collins clearly treated the burglary, rape and assault therein as the same criminal conduct on the facts presented. However, the antimerger statute gives the sentencing judge discretion to punish for burglary; it uses "may", not "shall".16 Therefore, it. would not be inconsistent to restrict Collins to its facts and hold that in the instant case, both crimes could be punished pursuant to the antimerger statute. Absent specific language so holding, I remain *461unpersuaded that the SRA has repealed the burglary anti-merger statute by implication.
Here, the trial court determined that the burglary and kidnapping did not encompass the same criminal conduct. Great deference should be paid to that determination.17 The different result reached by the majority on very similar facts in Lessley and Dunbar demonstrates that the issue is a close one. Pursuant to the antimerger statute, I would hold that the trial judge had the discretion to treat the burglary and kidnapping committed by Mr. Dunbar as separate criminal conduct and would affirm the sentence imposed.

As stated in State v. Lessley, supra at 464-65:
"Arguably, the burglary antimerger statute conflicts with RCW 9.94A.400(l)(a) and has been repealed by implication. When two statutes appear to conflict, every effort should be made to harmonize their respective provisions. Here, that is easily done by recognizing that application of the burglary antimerger statute is discretionary with the sentencing judge and permits punishment for burglary and other crimes simultaneously committed. This result accords with the well-established rules that the more specific statute controls over a conflicting, more general statute, and that the Legislature is presumed to be familiar with its prior legislation. In this case, then, the antimerger statute controls over the general language as to 'same criminal conduct' when the sentencing judge imposes punishment pursuant to RCW 9A.52.050. Repeals by implication are not favored. If repeal is appropriate, it should be done by the Legislature, not by the courts." (Footnotes omitted.)

RCW 9A.52.050 states:
"Every person who, in the commission of a burglary shall commit any other crime, may be punished therefor as well as for the burglary, and may be prosecuted for each crime separately."

In support of this proposition, the majority cites State v. Davis, 101 Wn.2d 654, 658, 682 P.2d 883 (1984) and State v. Bilal, 54 Wn. App. 778, 785, 776 P.2d 153, review denied, 113 Wn.2d 1020 (1989). These cases deal with the relationship between accomplice liability where the principal is armed as defined in the criminal code and the provisions in the SRA for enhancement of sentence for being armed. The cases do not support the majority's sweeping proposition.

Under RCW 9.94A.010, the purposes of the SRA are to:
"(1) Ensure that the punishment for a criminal offense is proportionate to the seriousness of the offense and the offender's criminal history;
"(2) Promote respect for the law by providing punishment which is just;
"(3) Be commensurate with the punishment imposed on others committing similar offenses;
" (4) Protect the public;
"(5) Offer the offender an opportunity to improve him or herself; and
"(6) Make frugal use of the state's resources."
RCW 9A.04.020(1) defines the purposes of the Washington Criminal Code as follows:
" (a) To forbid and prevent conduct that inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interest;
"(b) To safeguard conduct that is without culpability from condemnation as criminal;
" (c) To give fair warning of the nature of the conduct declared to constitute an offense;
*459" (d) To differentiate on reasonable grounds between serious and minor offenses, and to prescribe proportionate penalties for each."

See ROW 9.94A.010(1).

The majority cites Professor Boerner's treatise for the proposition that "the one and perhaps the only crime to which the SRA provision regarding same criminal conduct was intended to apply was burglary." Majority, at 456.1 do not agree. See Lessley, supra at 464 n.6.

See RCW 9.94A.120(2).

 112 Wn.2d 399, 771 P.2d 1137 (1989).

 110 Wn.2d 253, 751 P.2d 837 (1988).

See Collicott, at 408.

RCW 9A.52.050.

Collicott, at 404.