City of Seattle v. Wiggins
| Decision Date | 29 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 82138-5-I |
| Parties | CITY OF SEATTLE, Respondent, v. Roosevelt WIGGINS, Appellant. |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
Whitney Haven Sichel, Lindsey Elizabeth Ro Whyte, King County Department of Public Defense, TDAD, 710 2nd Ave., Ste 700, Seattle, WA, 98104-1724, for Petitioner.
Andrew James Clark, Benton County Prosecutors Office, 7122 W Okanogan Pl. Bldg. A, Kennewick, WA, 99336-2359, for Respondent.
PUBLISHED OPINION
¶1 Roosevelt Wiggins moved pretrial to exclude testimony from a Washington State Patrol (WSP) Crime Laboratory reviewer as to the results of his blood draw, in the absence of testimony from the analyst who conducted the tests on the blood sample. After two days of testimony from experts for both the defense and the City of Seattle (City), the municipal court granted his motion to exclude and then dismissed the misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence (DUI) against Wiggins. The City appealed to the superior court, but did not assign error to any of the findings of fact or conclusions of law from the municipal court hearing. After reviewing the record, briefing of the parties, and argument on appeal, the superior court supplanted the trial court's findings and conclusions with its own and reversed the municipal court.
¶2 Wiggins then petitioned for discretionary review to this court, which was granted. Because the superior court erred both as to the procedural aspects of the appeal under the Rules for Appeal for Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction (RALJ) and as to its interpretation of relevant case law, we reverse the superior court. Accordingly, we reinstate the municipal court's rulings1 and findings and conclusions resulting from the evidentiary hearing.
¶3 In November 2017, Roosevelt Wiggins was pulled over for a head light violation and was subsequently investigated on suspicion of DUI. After Wiggins refused a request from the responding officer to submit to a breath test, the officer obtained a search warrant for a blood draw. Pursuant to the warrant, two vials of Wiggins's blood were collected and sent to the WSP Crime Laboratory2 for drug and alcohol analysis. Christie Mitchell-Mata is the forensic scientist who performed the toxicology analysis of Wiggins's blood. Mitchell-Mata's work included handling, preparing and testing the samples, interpreting the data in real time, and running additional testing as necessary. Mitchell-Mata's forensic examination of the Wiggins sample produced a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.11g/100mL. After completing the testing and initial review process, Mitchell-Mata prepared a final report of her results and conclusions.
¶4 The case proceeded to trial, but the City did not elect to call Mitchell-Mata, asserting that she was unavailable to testify because she had left her employment with the WSP Crime Lab and moved out of state.3 The City instead sought to admit Mitchell-Mata's report, specifically the BAC results, though Brian Capron, who had signed the final report as the "reviewer." The municipal court held a two-day evidentiary hearing on the City's motion to admit the blood results through Capron. Wiggins argued that the motion should be denied based on his right to confront Mitchell-Mata as the primary witness against him under the Sixth Amendment to the federal constitution. Capron and defense expert Janine Arvizu both testified at the hearing. The municipal court denied the City's motion and entered findings of fact and conclusions of law at the request of defense counsel. The court ruled that admission of the analysis and results for Wiggins's blood draw through a WSP Crime Lab toxicology supervisor who did not perform the actual testing would violate Wiggins's constitutional right to confrontation. The court then sua sponte dismissed the charge against Wiggins based on its ruling to exclude the City's proposed testimony.
¶5 The City sought review in King County Superior Court under the RALJ. Both parties submitted briefing and argument on appeal; as the appellant, the City did not assign error to any of the findings of fact or conclusions of law by the municipal court and only challenged the ultimate ruling on admissibility of Capron's testimony. The appeal was transferred to another judge while it was pending in the superior court. After reviewing the briefing and record of proceedings from the earlier RALJ argument, as well as the record on appeal, the superior court judge reversed the municipal court's ruling. This court granted Wiggins's petition for discretionary review, which noted the procedural defect of the City's appeal and further contended there is a need for clarification of state case law on confrontation issues related to toxicology evidence. The second argument was based on claims of inconsistent application in both courts of limited jurisdiction and in superior courts sitting in their appellate capacity. A commissioner of this court granted discretionary review and allowed briefing on both issues.
¶6 A key procedural aspect of this case is independently dispositive; the City failed to challenge any of the municipal court's findings of facts on appeal. Therefore, they became verities which the superior court was required to accept for purposes of the RALJ appeal. As Wiggins points out, the superior court in this case improperly supplanted the unchallenged municipal court findings with its own. RALJ 9.1(b) controls and provides in relevant part:
The superior court shall accept those factual determinations supported by substantial evidence in the record ... which were expressly made by the court of limited jurisdiction.
The City asserts that RALJ 9.1 does not require assignments of error similar to the Rules of Appellate Procedure (RAPs) and says it merely "stands for the proposition that the Superior Court is not required to accept a factual finding that is not supported by the record." This is incorrect. Our state's highest court has been explicitly clear in reinforcing the importance of the superior court's adherence to the standard of review on RALJ appeal, which necessarily includes RALJ 9.1(b), stating, "[i]t is not within the Superior Court's scope of review to examine the evidence de novo." State v. Basson, 105 Wash.2d 314, 317, 714 P.2d 1188 (1986). When we grant discretionary review of a RALJ decision by the superior court, we "sit[ ] in the same position as the [prior] court in the review of the [municipal] court decision." State v. Weber, 159 Wash. App. 779, 787, 247 P.3d 782 (2011).
¶7 In Basson, the Supreme Court reversed a superior court's order on RALJ and reinstated the district court's findings because the superior court had erroneously conducted a de novo review of a suppression hearing and the district court's findings were supported by substantial evidence. 105 Wash.2d at 315, 317, 714 P.2d 1188. Basson clarified that the superior court's scope of review when sitting in its appellate capacity on RALJ did not permit de novo examination of the evidence. Id. at 317, 714 P.2d 1188. "We review the record before the district court, reviewing factual issues for substantial evidence and legal issues de novo." State v. Rosalez, 159 Wash. App. 173, 178, 246 P.3d 219 (2010). "Substantial evidence is evidence sufficient to persuade a fair-minded, rational person of the finding's truth." State v. Stewart, 12 Wash. App. 2d 236, 240, 457 P.3d 1213 (2020). We treat unchallenged findings of fact as verities on appeal. Id. If substantial evidence supports the findings, a reviewing court will not substitute its judgment for that of the trial court even though it might have resolved a dispute of fact differently. Matter of Custody of A.T., 11 Wash. App. 2d 156, 162, 451 P.3d 1132 (2019). By contrast, de novo review permits the appellate court to consider the rulings without deference to the trial court's legal conclusions. See Coogan v. Borg-Warner Morse Tec Inc., 197 Wash.2d 790, 812, 490 P.3d 200 (2021) ().
¶8 Had the City assigned error to any of the findings or conclusions from the municipal court, the superior court would have been tasked with reviewing the record for the sole purpose of determining whether they were supported by substantial evidence. Basson makes clear that under no circumstances should it have engaged in de novo review of the evidence from the trial court. The superior court improperly ignored the municipal court's findings and entered its own, despite the fact that the City failed to assign error to any of them on RALJ. We rely on the municipal court's unchallenged factual findings in conducting our review. See Glaefke v. Reichow, 51 Wash. App. 613, 616, 754 P.2d 1037 (1988) (). While the City argues in briefing that assignment of error to particular findings "is not required by the RALJ rules," at oral argument the prosecutor conceded that they have personally argued in other cases that unchallenged findings are verities on appeal.4 The City's admission at oral argument is consistent with case law, its argument in briefing is not.
¶9 In light of this clear precedent, the superior court erred by conducting de novo review of the evidence. On discretionary review, we sit in the same capacity as the original reviewing court and, accordingly, accept the unchallenged findings and conclusions as true. The record before us clearly demonstrates that the municipal court's findings are supported by substantial evidence. The trial court necessarily engaged in credibility determinations as to both Capron's and Arvizu's testimony. Capron explained his review of Mitchell-Mata's work and asserted he could form an independent opinion based on her results. Arvizu testified about the critical role played by...
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