Facts: Petitioner Bayani Mandanas was convicted of felony assault and felony harassment in the Superior Court for King County. Pursuant to Washington Revised Code §9.94A.533(3)(e), the sentence imposed upon Mandanas was enhanced with regard to each charge as he had committed these crimes while armed with a firearm, with the enhancements to be served consecutively. Mandanas appealed the sentence enhancements, asserting that multiple enhancements cannot be imposed when the offenses they are applied to arise from the same criminal conduct. The Washington Court of Appeals held that although the offenses arose from the same criminal conduct, the enhancements must nonetheless, consistent with the intent of §9.94A.533(3)(e), be served consecutively. Mandanas appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Washington.
Question(s): Does §9.94A.533(3)(e) require the imposition of multiple sentence enhancements when a defendant is convicted of multiple offenses arising from the same criminal conduct?
Conclusion: Justice Alexander’s opinion for the Court affirmed Mandanas’s sentence, concluding that language in the sentencing statute (Washington Revised Code §9.94A.589(1)(a)) stipulating that multiple offenses arising from the same criminal conduct be aggregated was intended to apply solely to calculating an offender score and did not in any way limit the effect of the enhancement statute, §9.94A.533(3)(e), which clearly establishes that all firearm related enhancements are mandatory and to be served consecutively.
Docket No. 80441-9 (from Court of Appeals Division I Case No. 57738-7)
Petitioner: Bayani Mandanas
(Counsel: Todd Maybrown, David Allen, and Maria Fernanda Torres)
Respondent: State of Washington
(Counsel: Dennis John McCurdy and James Morrissey Whisman)
Briefs:
Argument: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:00am
[Source: TVW, http://tvw.org]
Audio: Washington Supreme Court
Decided: Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Prevailing Party: State of Washington (Respondent)
Vote: 9-0
Citation: Pending
Court: Madsen1 Court (2010-)
Alexander
(Majority)
Johnson
Madsen
Sanders
(Concurs)
Chambers
Owens
Fairhurst
Johnson
Stephens
Note: We post only slip opinion(s) as published at the time of the decision. Please consult Washington Reports printed volumes for the opinion(s) in their final form. Each opinion should appear next to the Justice who authored it.