Facts: Petitioner Keith Dow was charged with child molestation in the Superior Court for Cowlitz County. The trial court subsequently held a hearing to determine the admissibility of statements made by Dow following his arrest, which constituted the only evidence that a crime had been committed, and ruled that Washington Revised Code §10.58.035, which permits the lawfully obtained statement of a defendant to be admitted into evidence when independent evidence that the defendant committed the charged crime is lacking if the statement is found to be trustworthy, violated the United States Constitution insofar as it was inconsistent with the federal standard prohibiting reliance upon such statements in the absence of independent evidence established in Opper v. United States, which the trial court ruled was mandated by constitutional requirements of due process. The state of Washington appealed the trial court’s decision to the Washington Court of Appeals, which held that while the Opper standard is a judicially created doctrine rather than a constitutional mandate, §10.58.035 addressed admissibility rather than sufficiency and did not override the requirement established by Washington case law that the state present evidence independent of a defendant’s inculpatory statements in order to secure a conviction. Thus, the Washington Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s ruling and remanded the case. Dow appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Washington.

Question(s): Was the decision in Opper v. United States grounded in the right to due process guaranteed by the United States Constitution?

If not, did §10.58.035 alter the common law requirement that the state present independent evidence of a defendant’s guilt?

Conclusion: Justice Charles W. Johnson’s opinion for the Court concluded that the rule established in Opper is judicially created rather than constitutionally mandated and therefore subjected to statutory modification. However, the Court also held that §10.58.035 altered the common law only with regard to the admissibility of inculpatory statements made by defendants and in no way precluded defendants from raising the claim that such statements were by themselves insufficient to convict them. As the state of Washington had presented no evidence corroborating the statements made by Dow and Washington case law required sufficient evidence independent of a defendant’s confession to support a conviction, the Court ruled that there was no reason to remand the case to the trial court and instead dismissed it.

Docket No. 81243-8 (from Court of Appeals Division II Case No. 34802-1)

Petitioner: Keith Dow

(Counsel: John A. Hays)

Respondent: State of Washington

(Counsel: Amie L. Hunt)

Briefs:

Argument: Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:00am

[Source: TVW, http://tvw.org]

Decided: Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Prevailing Party: Keith Dow (Petitioner)

Vote: 9-0

Citation: Pending

Court: Madsen1 Court (2010-)

Alexander

Johnson
(Majority)

Madsen

Sanders

Chambers

Owens

Fairhurst

Johnson
(Concurs)

Stephens