Court Opinion

ID: 9562362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:27:03.602059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:18.455503
License: Public Domain

Durham, C.J.
(concurring in dissent) — It is axiomatic that ascertaining legislative intent, and giving it effect, are the twin goals of judicial interpretation of statutes. I am persuaded the dissent accurately articulates what the Legislature meant by RCW 9.94A.360(6)(a), while the majority ignores legislative intent altogether. I write separately to suggest that since the statutory language at issue here is, at the very least, ambiguous, it is subject to construction.
The majority pretends it is helpless before an unambiguous sentence in the statute, and so is powerless even to look at the legislative history and intent of the section here at issue. However, the contention that the provision is wholly unambiguous, majority, at 288, is both mistaken and contrary to this court’s prior holdings.
I agree with the majority’s initial premise. If a legislative statement is unambiguous, this court should not attempt to go beyond the Legislature’s language in order to discern what might have been intended. Here, though, the statutory provision is anything but unambiguous. Hence, it is subject to the ordinary methods of statutory construction.
RCW 9.94A.360(6)(a) embodies at least two obvious facial ambiguities. The first is an ambiguity created by context. RCW 9.94A.360(6) includes three exceptions to the general rule that all prior convictions are to be counted separately. Section .360(6)(a) creates an exception for offenses which encompassed the same criminal conduct; section.360(6)(b) creates an exception for juvenile prior convictions entered or sentenced on the same date; and section.360(6)(c) creates an exception for adult convictions served concurrently before July 1, 1986.
The majority contends that RCW 9.94A.360(6)(a) also contains a completely different and much more expansive exception to the general rule of counting all prior convictions separately. Not only does it contain an exception for *301"same criminal conduct” offenses, but, according to the majority, it gives the sentencing court virtually unrestricted discretion to group prior concurrent sentences as it pleases. Even the majority admits the consequence of its interpretation of this stealth exception for prior concurrent sentences: "the statute provides no other standards restricting the current sentencing court’s discretion”. Majority, at 290. As the dissent points out, it would be anomalous indeed for the Legislature specifically to enumerate three exceptions and then tuck a blanket exception for prior concurrent sentences into a section dealing with a different topic. That anomaly alone constitutes a facial ambiguity. Dissent, at 292-95.
Moreover, even if one grants the majority’s interpretation of that anomaly, it only gives rise to a further ambiguity. If the majority’s interpretation of section.360(6)(a) is correct, then section.360(6)(c) would be superfluous, since it would be wholly subsumed into the exception (6)(a) allegedly creates for concurrent sentences. There is no point to having a special rule for multiple prior convictions for offenses committed prior to July 1, 1986, if all such offenses are subsumed into the more general rule allegedly hidden in (6)(a). Compare RCW 9.94A.360(6)(c) with RCW 9.94A.360(a). Furthermore, the majority’s interpretation conflicts with our recent decision in In re Sietz, 124 Wn.2d 645, 651, 880 P.2d 34 (1994) ("In drafting RCW 9.94A.360, the Legislature decided to treat multiple prior convictions committed pre-July 1, 1986, differently than those committed post-July 1, 1986”.).
Since the relevant grammatical sentence is unambiguous on its face, the majority suggests, any statutory construction is precluded. Majority, at 288-89. However, it makes little sense to pretend ambiguity resides only in individual sentences. Ambiguity is a function also of context. Even plain sentences, if ambiguously related to an ambiguous context, create ambiguity.
The second facial ambiguity occurs within the very sentence the majority claims to be wholly free from ambi*302guity. This court has explicitly held that the phrase "adult convictions served concurrently”, RCW 9.94A.360(6)(c), is ambiguous on its face. Sietz, 124 Wn.2d at 649; accord Sietz, at 655 (Durham, J., dissenting, but agreeing that "[t]he very ambiguity of the term 'concurrent’ precipitated this case”). See also State v. Roberts, 117 Wn.2d 576, 817 P.2d 855 (1991). Ironically, the same phrase we have held to be ambiguous on its face occurs in the middle of the crucial sentence the majority alleges to be wholly unambiguous. See majority, at 286.
The majority glosses over the clear legislative intent animating this statute — a legislative intent manifestly at odds with the majority’s interpretation — by pretending it embodies no ambiguity whatever. I think there is sufficient ambiguity to warrant resorting to legislative intent and history. Once one does so, the majority’s interpretation unravels, as the dissent demonstrates.