In re Detention of Campbell

• Decision Date: 21 October 1999
• Docket Number: No. 63986-8.,63986-8.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: In re the DETENTION OF Elmer CAMPBELL. Elmer Campbell, Appellant, v. State of Washington, Respondent.

986 P.2d 771

139 Wash.2d 341

In re the DETENTION OF Elmer CAMPBELL.

Elmer Campbell, Appellant, v. State of Washington, Respondent.

No. 63986-8.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Argued December 8, 1998.

Decided October 21, 1999.

As Corrected December 14, 1999.

Davis, Wright & Jones, Marshall J. Nelson, Michele Lynn Earl-Hubbard, Seattle, for Amicus Curiae on behalf of Allied Daily Newspapers, Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and the Seattle Times.

Russell Leonard, David Hirsch, Christine Jackson, Public Defender Association, Seattle, Bernadette Foley, Seattle, Anne Englehard, Seattle, for Appellant.

Christine Gregoire, Attorney General, Sarah Coats, and Sarah Sappington, Asst. Attorneys General, Norm Maleng, County Prosecutor, David Hackett, Deputy, Michele Hauptman, Deputy, Appellate Unit, Seattle, for Respondent.

JOHNSON, J.

The petitioner in this case, Special Commitment Center detainee Elmer Campbell, raises a multitude of issues related to his commitment. We are asked to determine whether alleged deficiencies in the care and treatment of persons civilly committed at the Special Commitment Center render the Community Protection Act of 1990, RCW 71.09, unconstitutional. In addition, we must review several rulings issued by the trial court in response to Campbell's pretrial motions, motions in limine, and posttrial motions.

FACTS

Elmer Campbell is currently a resident of the Special Commitment Center (SCC) at McNeil Island. Campbell was committed to prison in 1987 for first degree assault. Originally scheduled to be released from prison in 1993, Campbell was instead civilly committed by a superior court order to the SCC as a sexually violent predator (predator) under RCW 71.09. Campbell moved to dismiss his commitment petition based on his allegation that RCW 71.09 is unconstitutional. Among his several arguments, Campbell asserted that because conditions at the SCC are allegedly unconstitutional, the statute under which he was committed is also unconstitutional. Campbell's motion was denied.

The trial court conducted a probable cause hearing in November 1993, finding probable cause to hold Campbell a predator as defined by RCW 71.09. A jury trial followed in 1994. At trial, victim testimony chronicling Campbell's history of violence and sexual aggression was presented. A state-certified sex offender treatment provider also testified that Campbell suffered from both a mental abnormality and personality disorder that made him likely to reengage in future sexually violent acts.

The jury issued its verdict, finding Campbell a predator as defined by RCW 71.09 and finding the State had proved a less restrictive alternative was not in the best interests of Campbell or the community. Campbell filed a supplemental memorandum, to which he appended United States District Court Judge William Dwyer's order and injunction issued in Turay v. Weston, No. C91-664WD (W.D.Wash.1994). Judge Dwyer, in his order, had found some conditions at the SCC unconstitutional. Judge Dwyer had, therefore, placed the SCC under a remedial injunction.¹

Following the jury's verdict, judgment was entered to commit Campbell. The trial court then held a hearing on another motion by Campbell to dismiss his commitment petition on the grounds that some of the SCC confinement conditions are unconstitutional. In its deliberation, the trial court relied upon the record of an evidentiary hearing issued by the superior court in In re Young, No. 90-2-21319-6 (King County Super. Ct., Wash. 1993), on remand from our decision in In re Personal Restraint of Young, 122 Wash.2d 1, 857 P.2d 989 (1993), as well as supplemental testimony. The trial court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law on Campbell's motion. The court agreed with Campbell that certain conditions at the SCC were unconstitutional. The court, however, declined to release him. Instead, the court required the State to submit a proposal for remedying conditions at the SCC, setting a new deadline for compliance. The trial court also granted permission to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) to intervene in the case for the purpose of contesting personal jurisdiction.

The trial court issued its final order on Campbell's motion on March 7, 1995. The court again refused to grant Campbell's motion to dismiss his commitment petition but did affirm Campbell's motion that some of the conditions at the SCC violated both the state and federal constitutions. The court required the State join in the remediation program ordered by the United States District Court in Turay.

Campbell timely appealed to this court and we granted review. We affirm our 1993 decision in Young, 122 Wash.2d 1, 857 P.2d 989, upholding the constitutionality of RCW 71.09. We also affirm Campbell's order of commitment.

ANALYSIS

I.

RCW 71.09.060, in its present form, requires that whenever a court or a 12-person jury unanimously finds a person to be a sexually violent predator and a less restrictive alternative to total commitment is inappropriate, that person must be placed in the custody of DSHS. DSHS must provide that person with social and health services for control, care, and treatment at a secure facility operated by DSHS. This care and treatment must be adequate under the statute. RCW 71.09.060.

On appeal, Campbell raises the argument that because some of the SCC conditions of care are inadequate, his detention is criminal rather than civil in nature and, therefore, violates his right to substantive due process and protections against ex post facto laws or double jeopardy. Campbell reasons if some of the SCC conditions are unconstitutional, those unconstitutional conditions render RCW 71.09 unconstitutional as well.

At his 1994 trial, Campbell advanced this theory when he filed a motion requesting the trial court dismiss his commitment petition and release him from the SCC on the grounds that some SCC conditions were allegedly unconstitutional. In response, the trial court ruled while some of the SCC conditions did not meet constitutional muster, the appropriate remedy was not Campbell's release but, rather, a court order to the State mandating development of a remedial plan to improve SCC conditions.

The State, in turn, argued against the jurisdictional legitimacy of the trial court's remedial order. The State maintained the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over the SCC's managing state agency, DSHS. Upon consideration of the State's motion, the court found it possessed both personal and subject matter jurisdiction over DSHS, dismissing the State's argument, and affirming the court's order. Campbell then argued again that the trial court, having found the SCC conditions unconstitutional, should likewise find RCW 71.09 itself unconstitutional. The trial court denied Campbell's request.

In arguing the SCC's conditions of care render RCW 71.09 criminal rather than civil in nature, Campbell attempts to relitigate an issue we have already resolved. In analyzing the constitutionality of RCW 71.09 in Young, we also examined the issue of whether "the Statute violates due process because ... constitutionally required treatment is precluded due to the conditions of confinement." Young, 122 Wash.2d at 26, 857 P.2d 989 (emphasis added). In Young, this court held the legislative intent of the statute is not to punish detainees and RCW 71.09 is civil, not criminal, in nature in both "purpose and effect." Young, 122 Wash.2d at 18-25, 857 P.2d 989 (emphasis added). We stated, "RCW 71.09 ... does not violate either the prohibition against ex post facto laws or the double jeopardy clause. We further hold, after a searching inquiry, that the basic statutory scheme implicates no substantive due process concerns." Young, 122 Wash.2d at 59, 857 P.2d 989.

Because fundamental rights were at issue in Young, we employed a strict scrutiny test to determine if either RCW 71.09 or the SCC's conditions violate the detainees' rights. Young, 122 Wash.2d at 26-27, 857 P.2d 989. Under a strict scrutiny analysis, the statute at dispute has to both serve a compelling state interest and be narrowly drawn. Young, 122 Wash.2d at 26, 857 P.2d 989. We found RCW 71.09 does both. Indeed, we have found it "irrefutable" that RCW 71.09, by treating the mentally ill and removing sexual predators from society, serves a compelling state interest. Young, 122 Wash.2d at 26, 857 P.2d 989. The principle of stare decisis compels this court to uphold our decision in Young unless Campbell can prove doing so would be incorrect and harmful. Key Designs, Inc. v. Moser, 138 Wash.2d 875, 882, 983 P.2d 653 (1999) (citing State v. Berlin, 133 Wash.2d 541, 547, 947 P.2d 700 (1997)).

Campbell cites no precedent for the proposition that whenever a statute is unconstitutionally administered, such flawed administration renders the statute itself unconstitutional. Indeed, the State correctly notes that "[Campbell's] argument confuses the issue of a committed individual's due process rights following a valid commitment under the Statute with the analysis of whether the Statute's scheme for involuntary commitment is constitutional." Br. of Resp't at 21. We have held, in order to evaluate a statute's constitutionality, a court's task is to look at the statute on its face, not whether it is adequately applied. Winchester v. Stein, 135 Wash.2d 835, 959 P.2d 1077 (1998). Winchester expressly noted that "[t]he focus... is on the sanction allowed by the statute, not the actual sanction imposed in a particular case." Winchester, 135 Wash.2d at 847,959 P.2d 1077. Finally, we iterated the principle that:

A legislature's designation of a penalty as civil is entitled to considerable deference and that designation will not be overborne unless the statute, considered on its face and without reference to the level of sanction imposed in the particular case, is clearly so punitive as to render it criminal despite the legislature's intent

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