State v. Werner

• Decision Date: 11 July 1996
• Docket Number: No. 63657-5,63657-5
• Citation: 129 Wn.2d 485,918 P.2d 916
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: The STATE of Washington, Petitioner, v. Thomas J. WERNER, Respondent.

Page 485

129 Wn.2d 485

918 P.2d 916

The STATE of Washington, Petitioner, v.Thomas J. WERNER, Respondent.

No. 63657-5.

Supreme Court of Washington En Banc.

Argued June 13, 1996.

Decided July 11, 1996.

H. Steward Menefee, Grays Harbor County Prosecutor, Gerald R. Fuller, Deputy, Montesano, for petitioner.

Ingram, Zelasko & Goodwin, Arthur A. Blauvelt, III, Tamara Darst, Aberdeen, for respondent.

TALMADGE, Justice.

We are asked in this case to clarify the status of juvenile courts and juvenile court jurisdiction under Washington law, and the authority of superior court judges to issue arrest warrants for juveniles.While executing a warrant issued by the Pierce County Superior Court for the arrest of Leonard Dyer, a juvenile, the Aberdeen police discovered evidence of Thomas Werner's marijuana growing operation.Werner argues the evidence was inadmissible and must be suppressed because the warrant under which the police acted, issued by a superior court judge under the caption of the superior court, was illegal because Dyer was a juvenile.The trial court and Court of Appeals ultimately agreed that the Pierce County Superior Court lacked jurisdiction in Dyer's case and any evidence generated pursuant to the police's execution of the allegedly illegal warrant must be suppressed.

We hold the Pierce County Superior Court had jurisdiction over Leonard Dyer and had authority to issue an arrest warrant.We vacate the Grays Harbor County Superior Court order of suppression, reverse the judgment dismissing the information, and remand the case for trial.

ISSUES

1.Was the arrest warrant for Leonard Dyer a proper exercise of the jurisdiction of the Pierce County Superior Court?

2.Did the Grays Harbor Superior Court err in suppressing evidence gathered by the police at the residence of defendantThomas Werner as a result of the execution of the Dyer warrant?

FACTS

On January 25, 1993, pursuant to an information charging Leonard Dyer with the crime of assault in the second degree, a judge of the Pierce County Superior Court entered an Order for Bench Warrant directing the Pierce County Clerk to issue a bench warrant for Dyer's arrest.The bench warrant issued the same day.

On February 12, 1993, the Aberdeen police executed the bench warrant at the house in Aberdeen where Dyer was staying.Officer Slyter and Captain Delia knocked on the door of the residence at 6:30 a.m., and Dyer appeared.They informed Dyer they had a warrant for his arrest, placed him under arrest, and handcuffed him on the porch of the house.Dyer then asked if he could put some clothing on, as he was in his shorts.The police consented, provided Dyer allowed them to enter the house with him.Dyer agreed to allow the police into the house so he could dress.

Both police officers testified when they were in the living room they could smell growing marijuana.The smell was not apparent until they entered the house.Both officers testified that, but for having smelled marijuana while inside the residence, they had no interest in the residence and no suspicion marijuana was growing there.After depositing Dyer at the Aberdeen Police Station, Officer Slyter and Captain Delia discussed the marijuana smell and what to do about it.Captain Delia told Officer Slyter to return to the house and ask Dyer's stepfather, Thomas Werner, who also lived there, about it.Slyter did so.Werner did not respond to Slyter's questions, and told Slyter to get a warrant if he wanted to search the house.

Slyter then went back to his vehicle and sat there for five or ten minutes, waiting.He observed Werner leave the house and hurriedly back up a van parked in front of the house into the driveway, leaving the back door of the van open.He then observed Werner running from the house and loading items into the back of the van.Later, as he approached the house, he recognized the items as potted marijuana plants.When Werner saw the police, he threw up his hands and said, "You guys got me.I give up."Report of Proceedingsat 14.

Werner signed a consent to search form and Officer Slyter read him his Miranda ¹ rights.As a result of the search of his house, the police arrested Thomas Werner.The Grays Harbor County Drug Task Force later seized 42 growing marijuana plants, each about 2 feet tall, from the van parked in the driveway.Werner subsequently admitted he had carried the plants from his house to the van.The Task Force also found a ledger book with various money amounts, records reflecting an ongoing marijuana grow since 1990, including information about harvest dates, trim dates, and budding dates.

Meanwhile, on the same day as Dyer's arrest, the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney moved the Pierce County Superior Court to dismiss without prejudice the action against Dyer and to quash the bench warrant for his arrest.As Dyer was only 17 years old at the time, the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney alleged he had erroneously applied to the adult superior court for the bench warrant for Dyer's arrest rather than to juvenile court.The trial court dismissed: "for the reason that the defendant is a juvenile and, therefore, this court does [n]ot have jurisdiction over him.I am referring this case to juvenile court."Findings of Fact nos. 9, 10;Clerk's Papersat 35.

On February 16, 1993, the State filed an information charging Werner with manufacturing a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.Werner moved to suppress all the evidence seized on the ground the arrest of Dyer was illegal because the superior court had no jurisdiction over juveniles, and thus the officers who entered Werner's home and smelled the marijuana were present there illegally; therefore, the evidence they subsequently seized from Werner constituted "fruit of the poisonous tree."

The Grays Harbor Superior Court held the suppression hearing on July 6, 1993.After hearing testimony from the officers and Werner, the court entered an Order Suppressing Evidence and Dismissing Information on July 26, 1993.The court concluded the bench warrant for Dyer's arrest was invalid because the Pierce County Superior Court lacked jurisdiction over the juvenile; the arrest of Dyer on February 12 was invalid; and everything the police did after smelling marijuana during the arrest of Dyer, including Werner's confession, was tainted by the invalid arrest.The court dismissed the information.

The State appealed, assigning error to the trial court's suppression order.At Division II, the State argued the Pierce County Superior Court had jurisdiction to issue Dyer's bench warrant, despite Dyer's being a juvenile; the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule applied even if there was no jurisdiction; and Werner's subsequent conduct and consent to search were intervening causes sufficient to remove the taint of illegality.The Court of Appeals affirmed, State v. Werner, 79 Wash.App. 872, 889, 906 P.2d 342(1995), and we granted review.

ANALYSIS

The trial court and the Court of Appeals each held the bench warrant, which was signed by a Pierce County Superior Court judge, was not valid because Dyer was a juvenile.

The trial court, in its oral decision suppressing the evidence, expressed some consternation at the paradoxical conclusion it reached:

I realize that it sounds kind of funny, and I'm sitting here and I'm trying to rationalize why I can issue a warrant for a juvenile on one hand, but I can't on the other hand.

I can issue if I'm sitting as a juvenile judge, but I can't if I'm sitting here as a superior court judge; I can if the piece of paper says in juvenile court, but I can't if the "in juvenile court" is missing.But that's the way it is, and there's probably a purpose, because we treat people who are charged as juveniles differently than we treat people who are charged as adults.

Report of Proceedingsat 117.

The Court of Appeals reasoned the statute giving juvenile courts exclusive original jurisdiction over juveniles rendered the superior court bench warrant illegal.At the time of the trial court's decision, RCW 13.04.030 provided:

The juvenile courts in the several counties of this state, shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all proceedings:

...

(5) Relating to juveniles alleged or found to have committed offenses, traffic infractions, or violations as provided in RCW 13.40.020 through 13.40.230, as not or hereafter amended, unless:

(a)The juvenile court transfers jurisdiction of a particular juvenile to adult criminal court pursuant to RCW 13.40.110.

The Court of Appeals said: "Dyer was seventeen when the adult division issued the warrant at issue here, and the juvenile division had not declined jurisdiction over him.Thus, the adult division lacked jurisdiction, and the warrant it issued was invalid."Werner, 79 Wash.App. at 879, 906 P.2d 342.

We believe the trial court and the Court of Appeals were too narrow in their focus.In looking only at RCW 13.04.030, the statutory conferral of "exclusive original jurisdiction over all proceedings" by the Legislature on the juvenile court, both courts overlooked a more fundamental authority.Superior court jurisdiction flows from constitutional mandate.Superior courts are courts of general jurisdiction and have original jurisdiction

in all criminal cases amounting to felony, and in all cases of misdemeanor not otherwise provided for by law....The superior court shall also have original jurisdiction in all cases and of all proceedings in which jurisdiction shall not have been by law vested exclusively in some other court[.]

WASH. CONST . art. IV, § 6(amend.LXXXVII).

The juvenile court is only a division of the superior court, not a separate constitutional court.RCW 13.04.021(1).Indeed, the creation of juvenile courts by statute long postdated the adoption of art. IV, § 6, in 1889.As Division II recently held, "The Legislature has not subtracted from the superior...