by Sam Rutherford

The Supreme Court of Washington held that a defendant’s judgment and sentence was facially invalid and thus exempt from the one-year time limit for seeking postconviction relief where it included several “washed out” prior juvenile offenses in the offender score calculation which in turn resulted in an incorrect sentencing range. The Court found that this error was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant postconviction relief despite the defendant’s stipulation that reasons existed for a sentence above the standard range.

Background

In November 2015, Olajide Adel Fletcher shot another man in the legs five times over a dispute about a television. The State charged him with first degree assault with a firearm enhancement. After plea negotiations, Fletcher agreed to plead nolo contendere to one count of second-degree assault with a firearm enhancement and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. He also agreed that “substantial and compelling reasons” exited for exceptional sentence above the standard sentencing range.

The State informed Fletcher it would request concurrent sentences of 10 years, the statutory maximum for each offense. But Fletcher’s plea agreement did not spell out what “substantial and compelling reasons” the State would rely on to justify the exceptional sentence, and it did not require him to agree with the State’s sentencing recommendation.

The parties and the trial court calculated Fletcher’s offender score as “8” for the second-degree assault conviction and as “5” for the unlawful possession of a firearm conviction. Both scores were based in part on Fletcher’s two prior attempted second-degree assault juvenile adjudications from 2006. At the time, no one recognized that these prior juvenile adjudications had “washed-out” and should not have been included in Fletcher’s offender score. See State v. Moeurn, 240 P.3d 1158 (Wash. 2010) (discussing conditions under which prior juvenile offenses “wash out” of adult offender score calculations). The inclusion of the washed-out crimes had a significant impact on Fletcher’s standard range sentence; their exclusion dropped the top-end of the range from 70 to 20 months.

At the sentencing hearing in February 2016, the parties jointly recommended an exceptional sentence of 10 years in prison. The trial court adopted this recommendation, sentencing Fletcher to 120 months’ confinement on the second-degree assault conviction and 41 months on the unlawful possession of a firearm conviction.

Fletcher did not appeal his convictions or sentence, but he did file two separate motions to vacate his sentence in the trial court. The first was filed in 2016 and did not raise the wash-out issue. It was transferred to the Court of Appeals for consideration as a personal restraint petition and then dismissed as frivolous.

Fletcher filed the second motion in 2019. He specifically argued that the inclusion of the washed-out juvenile offenses in his offender score rendered his judgment and sentence facially invalid and requested a new sentencing hearing. The trial court agreed with Fletcher that his sentence was likely invalid, appointed counsel to represent him, and scheduled a hearing on the motion. The State responded by agreeing that Fletcher’s standard sentence range was miscalculated but that the error was irrelevant because he had stipulated to an exceptional sentence.

The trial court ruled that Fletcher’s judgment and sentence was facially invalid and thus exempt from the one-year time limit for seeking postconviction relief based on the inclusion of washed-out offenses in his offender score, which resulted in a significantly increased standard range sentence. The court also agreed with Fletcher that he was entitled to a new sentencing hearing at which it could consider what exceptional sentence is appropriate in light of the corrected standard sentencing range.

At resentencing, the State again requested an exceptional sentence of 120 months. Fletcher requested a lower sentence, based in large part on his rehabilitative efforts while in prison and the fact that his children were growing up without a father. The trial court thoroughly weighed both positions and the strengths and weakness of the case overall, ultimately deciding to impose a total sentence of 77 months in prison.

The State timely appealed the new sentence to the Court of Appeals, but before the appeal was decided, Fletcher completed his new sentence and was released from custody. The appellate court then reversed the trial court, ruling that Fletcher failed to establish good cause for failing to raise the wash-out issue in his first postconviction motion and that his second motion was therefore impermissibly successive under RCW 10.73.140. The appellate court ordered the trial court to reinstate Fletcher’s original sentence and return him to prison. The Washington Supreme Court denied review.

In August 2022, just a few days before the remand hearing which would have returned him to prison, Fletcher filed a personal restraint petition in the Washington Supreme Court, raising the same wash-out issue. The Supreme Court transferred the petition to the Court of Appeals, but that court rejected the transfer and sent it back to the Supreme Court for consideration on its merits because the appellate court lacked jurisdiction to consider the successive collateral attack under RCW 10.73.140. See In re Pers. Restraint of Martinez, 256 P.3d 277 (Wash. 2011) (explaining that the statute barring successive postconviction petitions does not apply to the state Supreme Court). Fletcher also filed a motion to remain out-of-custody while his petition was pending, which the Supreme Court granted.

Analysis

Fletcher’s petition presented two issues for the Court to resolve: whether, in light of his stipulation to an exceptional sentence, (1) the incorrect offender score and standard sentence range rendered his judgment and sentence facially invalid and therefore exempt from the one-year time limit for seeking postconviction relief and (2) whether the incorrect sentence range resulted in sufficient prejudice to warrant postconviction relief. The Supreme Court resolved both issues in Fletcher’s favor.

Time Bar Issue

“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.” RCW 10.73.090(1) (emphasis supplied). Where an offender score and standard sentence range are miscalculated based on the inclusion of washed-out prior juvenile adjudications and that error is apparent on the face of the judgment and sentence, it is facially invalid and the sentencing error claim is exempt from the one-year time limit. In re Pers. Restraint of Goodwin, 50 P.3d 618 (Wash. 2002); In re Pers. Restraint of LaChapelle, 100 P.3d 805 (Wash. 2004).

Fletcher argued that his judgment and sentence, like the judgments at issue in Goodwin and LaChapelle, was facially invalid by including washed-out juvenile offenses in his offender score and standard sentence range. But not every sentencing error renders a judgment and sentence facially invalid. In re Pers. Restraint of Coats, 267 P.3d 324 (Wash. 2011). For example, a “technical misstatement” on the face of the judgment that does not affect the prisoner’s actual sentence does not establish facial invalidity. In re Pers. Restraint of Toledo-Sotelo, 297 P.3d 51 (Wash. 2013). Because Fletcher stipulated to the imposition of an exceptional sentence above the standard sentence range, the State argued that Fletcher’s miscalculated standard sentence range was merely a technical error that did not render his sentence facially.

The Court, however, rejected this argument because “the errors in Fletcher’s case mattered.” It explained that like in Goodwin, Fletcher’s judgment and sentence was “not facially valid due to the extreme miscalculation of his offender score and standard range.” His stipulation to the imposition of an exceptional sentence did not alter this conclusion because, under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981, ch. 9.94A RCW, “the sentencing judge remains the one responsible for deciding whether to depart from the standard range and, if so, by how much; and the sentencing judge must make sure that any departure from the standard range is justified by a ‘substantial and compelling reason’ and is ‘consistent with the purposes of the [Sentencing Reform Act] SRA.’” Quoting In re Pers. Restraint of Breedlove, 979 P.2d 417 (Wash. 1999).

The Court explained that Fletcher’s miscalculated offender score meant the sentencing court was “completely misinformed” about the correct standard sentence range and, therefore, could not carry out its responsibility to ensure that any exceptional sentence it imposed was consistent with the SRA. In fact, numerous Washington cases hold that the “offender score and its resulting standard range must inform the sentencing court’s decision about whether it should depart above the statutorily mandated range and, if so, how far.” Because the sentencing error in this case deprived the trial court of this opportunity, the inclusion of washed-out prior offenses in Fletcher’s offender score had an “actual effect” on his rights and rendered his judgment and sentence facially invalid, the Court concluded. In re Pers. Restraint of McKiearnan, 203 P.3d 375 (Wash. 2009).

Prejudice Issue

Having established that his postconviction petition was exempt from the one-year time bar, Fletcher’s next task was to establish that the sentencing error in his case was “a fundamental defect of a nonconstitutional nature that inherently resulted in a complete miscarriage of justice.” In re Pers. Restraint of Finstad, 301 P.3d 450 (Wash. 2013). Typically, the “imposition of a sentence based on an incorrect offender score that produces a standard range that is far higher than it should have been constitutes a complete miscarriage of justice.” Goodwin.

The State attempted to avoid this conclusion by arguing that Fletcher could not establish a miscarriage of justice because he agreed to an exceptional sentence, meaning that a correct standard sentence range had no impact on the sentence he received. But the record did not support the State’s argument. While it is true that Fletcher agreed that substantial and compelling reasons existed for an exceptional sentence and he acknowledged that the State would seek an exceptional sentence based on this stipulation, “the plea agreement did not require Fletcher to agree with the prosecutor’s recommendation,” the Court stated.

Instead, the Court concluded that Fletcher established sufficient prejudice to warrant postconviction relief because his “exceptional sentence was based on improper sentencing calculations, the mistake had a dramatic impact on the standard sentencing range, and there is a high probability that the mistake affected the original sentence.” The Court therefore granted his petition and remanded the case for resentencing at which “both parties may present evidence and argument for the appropriate sentence based on Fletcher’s correct offender score, the terms of the plea agreement, and the purposes of the SRA.” Finally, the Court instructed that while Fletcher remained bound by his stipulation that substantial and compelling reasons existed for an exceptional sentence, he also remained free to request, and the trial court has authority to impose, any lawful sentence.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court granted Fletcher’s personal restraint petition, vacated the exceptional sentence that had been reimposed by the Court of Appeals, and remanded the case for resentencing consistent with its opinion. See: In re Pers. Restraint of Fletcher, 552 P.3d 302 (Wash. 2024). 

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