City of Seattle v. Winebrenner

• Citation: 219 P.3d 686,167 Wn.2d 451
• Decision Date: 29 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. 81279-9.,No. 81280-2.,81279-9.,81280-2.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Washington
• Parties: CITY OF SEATTLE, Respondent, v. Scott WINEBRENNER, Petitioner. City of Seattle, Respondent, v. Jesus Quezada, Petitioner.

219 P.3d 686

167 Wn.2d 451

CITY OF SEATTLE, Respondent, v. Scott WINEBRENNER, Petitioner.

City of Seattle, Respondent, v. Jesus Quezada, Petitioner.

No. 81279-9.

No. 81280-2.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Argued June 30, 2009.

Decided October 29, 2009.

James Robert Dixon, Dixon & Cannon, Ltd., Seattle, Damon Alexander Platis, Lynnwood, for Petitioner/Appellant.

Moses Flint Garcia, Washington State Patrol, Richard Edward Greene, Seattle City Atty., Seattle, for Appellee/Respondent.

Sheryl Gordon McCloud, Law Offices of Sheryl Gordon McCloud, Seattle, Theodore Wayne Vosk, Law Offices of Vosk & Velasquez, Bothell, Schoen R. Parnell, Edmonds, for amicus curiae Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

CHAMBERS, J.

¶ 1 In separate prosecutions, petitioners Scott Winebrenner and Jesus Quezada were each found guilty of driving under the influence (DUI) after their deferred prosecutions were revoked by the trial court. In both cases, the court declined to consider offenses committed after the current offense in determining the mandatory minimum sentence under RCW 46.61.5055.¹ At issue is the meaning of "prior offenses" under the statute and whether a "prior offense" is one that occurs before the arrest for the current offense or before sentencing. Concluding that the statute is ambiguous and subject to two reasonable interpretations, we apply the rule of lenity and construe it in favor of the petitioners. We reverse the Court of Appeals.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Quezada

¶ 2 Quezada was convicted of DUI in 2001.² In 2002, he was again arrested for DUI and later entered into a deferred prosecution on that charge. In 2005, Quezada was again charged with DUI, which he pleaded to the lesser charge of reckless driving. Based on the 2005 conviction, the municipal court revoked Quezada's 2003 deferred prosecution and sentenced him for the underlying offense. The court rejected the city of Seattle's argument that the 2005 conviction was a prior offense for purposes of sentencing for the 2002 offense. It found that Quezada had one prior offense and sentenced him to 120 days of electronic home monitoring.

¶ 3 On appeal, the superior court affirmed that Quezada had only one prior offense for purposes of sentencing for the deferred prosecution.³ The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the 2005 conviction for reckless driving should have been considered a prior offense when Quezada was sentenced for the 2003 offense. City of Seattle v. Quezada, 142 Wash.App. 43, 52, 174 P.3d 129 (2007).

Winebrenner

¶ 4 Winebrenner was arrested for DUI in 2001 and entered into a deferred prosecution. In 2005, Winebrenner was again arrested for DUI, though he later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of reckless driving. The 2005 reckless driving conviction violated the conditions of the 2001 deferred prosecution. The municipal court revoked the deferred prosecution and proceeded to sentence Winebrenner for the 2001 offense. For purposes of sentencing, the court considered the 2001 charge a first offense and sentenced Winebrenner to the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment and 30 days of electronic home monitoring.

¶ 5 The city of Seattle appealed the sentence to the King County Superior Court, arguing that the 2001 DUI was not a first offense because the 2005 offense should have been considered a "prior offense" under RCW 46.61.5055. The superior court agreed holding that for purposes of sentencing Winebrenner for his 2001 DUI, the 2005 reckless driving conviction was a "prior offense" and should have been included when determining the mandatory minimum sentence. The superior court also concluded that the deferred prosecution of the 2001 DUI itself should also have been included as a prior offense. It therefore found that Winebrenner had two prior offenses (one being the deferred prosecution) for purposes of sentencing for the 2001 DUI offense and remanded the case back to the trial court for resentencing.

¶ 6 Winebrenner appealed the superior court's decision, and the case was consolidated with Quezada's. The Court of Appeals agreed that for purposes of sentencing for the 2001 DUI offense, the 2005 conviction should have been considered a "prior offense," but that the deferred prosecution itself could not be considered. Quezada, 142 Wash.App. at 52-53, 174 P.3d 129. The court concluded that the 2001 charge was Winebrenner's second offense for sentencing purposes and upheld the decision of the superior court. Id. at 53, 174 P.3d 129.

ANALYSIS

¶ 7 Questions of statutory interpretation are reviewed de novo. State v. Salavea, 151 Wash.2d 133, 140, 86 P.3d 125 (2004). "The `plain meaning' of a statutory provision is to be discerned from the ordinary meaning of the language at issue, as well as from the context of the statute in which that provision is found, related provisions, and the statutory scheme as a whole." State v. Jacobs, 154 Wash.2d 596, 600, 115 P.3d 281 (2005). If after examination of a statute we find that it is subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, the statute is ambiguous. Id. at 600-01, 115 P.3d 281. However, a statute is not ambiguous merely because more than one interpretation is conceivable. Agrilink Foods, Inc. v. State Dep't of Revenue, 153 Wash.2d 392, 396, 103 P.3d 1226 (2005) (citing State v. Hahn, 83 Wash. App. 825, 831, 924 P.2d 392 (1996)).

¶ 8 RCW 46.61.5055 sets out a penalty schedule for persons convicted of certain alcohol related offenses, including DUI. The statute requires the court to sentence violators to increasingly severe minimum penalties based on the number of "prior offenses" an offender has "within seven years" of the current offense. RCW 46.61.5055. For example, an offender with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of at least 0.15 who has no prior offenses within seven years of the current offense must be sentenced to a minimum of two days, nondeferrable imprisonment, and given a minimum $500 fine. RCW 46.61.5055(1)(b)(i)-(ii). An offender with a BAC of at least 0.15 and one prior offense within seven years must be sentenced to a minimum of 45 days' imprisonment, 90 days of home monitoring, and a minimum $750 fine. RCW 46.61.5055(2)(b)(i)-(ii). The schedule continues in that pattern for each offense with multiple prior offenses increasing the minimum penalty the court must impose.⁴

¶ 9 The issue here is whether "prior offense" applies only to offenses that occurred before the current offense or whether "prior offense" encompasses all offenses the defendant has before sentencing. Put differently, we must decide whether "prior," as used in the RCW 46.61.5055, means before the offense or before sentencing. "Prior" is not specifically defined in the statute but "prior offense" is. The statute lists eight specific offenses and dispositions that are considered prior offenses when determining a defendant's mandatory minimum sentence. For example, a prior offense may be a "conviction for a violation of RCW 46.61.502 or an equivalent local ordinance." RCW 46.61.5055(14)(a)(i). Or a prior offense may be a "deferred prosecution under chapter 10.05 RCW granted in a prosecution for a violation of RCW 46.61.502, 46.61.504, or an equivalent local ordinance." RCW 46.61.5055(14)(a)(vii). While these and other dispositions are specifically included, the statutory definition of "prior offense" does not include any temporal limit.

¶ 10 The petitioners argue that "prior offense" plainly means an offense that occurred before the offense for which they are being sentenced. To construe the statute differently, they argue, would create a scheme in which defendants may be sentenced twice for a second DUI offense rather than once for a first offense, once for a second offense, and so on. Winebrenner's Pet. for Review at 1-2. As petitioners point out, under the city's interpretation, both Winebrenner's and Quezada's earlier DUI offenses count as "prior offenses" for the later offenses, and the later offenses also count as "prior offenses" for the earlier offenses. Such a result, the petitioners contend, is "unlikely, absurd, [and] strained." Id. at 2.

¶ 11 Petitioners also argue that to construe the statute as requiring courts to consider offenses that occurred both before and after the current offense would render the word "prior" superfluous. As the petitioners correctly note, under such a reading the word "prior" would not in any way serve to modify "offense." Id. at 12. "Prior offense" and "offense" would have the same meaning. We presume the legislature does not use superfluous words. In re Recall of Pearsall-Stipek, 141 Wash.2d 756, 767, 10 P.3d 1034 (2000). Since the legislature did not specifically define "prior" the petitioners urge that it should be given its common meaning.

¶ 12 The city counters that while the legislature did not define "prior" it did define "prior offenses" and did not specify that the term was limited to offenses occurring before the current offense. It claims it would be "nonsense for the legislature to separately define the word `prior' when it defined and exclusively relied upon the specific term `prior offense'." Suppl. Br. of Resp't at 2. To extract one word from a defined term to introduce ambiguity, the city argues, should be rejected.

¶ 13 Instead, the city suggests that although the statutory definition of "prior offense" does not provide a temporal limit on which offenses must be counted to determine the mandatory minimum sentence, a temporal limitation can be found in the term "within seven years." The statute defines "within seven years" to mean "that the arrest for a prior offense occurred within seven years of the arrest for the current offense." RCW 46.61.5055(14)(b). The term "within" may mean any time before, during, or after a specified period. See Glenn v. Garrett, 84 S.W.2d 515, 516 (Tex.App.1935). Thus, according to the city, sentencing courts may consider any offenses the defendant has been convicted of at the time...