Facts: Petitioner Cipriano Nonog was convicted in the Superior Court for King County of violating of a no contact order, burglary, domestic violence, and interfering with domestic violence reporting. Nonog subsequently appealed his conviction for interfering with domestic violence reporting, claiming that the state had failed to provide adequate notice of the charges against him insofar as it had not sufficiently specified the instance of domestic violence whose reporting he was being charged with interfering with. The Washington Court of Appeals affirmed Nonog’s conviction, holding that the instance of domestic violence underlying the interference charge could reasonably be inferred from the indictment as a whole. Nonog appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Washington.

Question(s): Did the state provide Nonog with sufficient notice of the charges against him?

Conclusion: Justice Stephens’ opinion for a unanimous Court affirmed Nonog’s conviction, concluding that the state had adequately apprised Nonog that the instance of domestic violence underlying the interference charge was the same instance that had given rise to the other charges in the indictment insofar as the interference charge specified the date on which the domestic violence occurred and therefore implicitly incorporated the other charges in the indictment. Thus, as the interference charge otherwise included all of the elements specified by Washington Revised Code §9A.36.150, it was sufficient.

Docket No. 82094-5 (from Court of Appeals Division I Case No. 60248-9)

Petitioner: Cipriano Nonog

(Counsel: Maureen Marie Cyr)

Respondent: State of Washington

(Counsel: Brian Martin McDonald)

Briefs:

Argument: Thursday, February 25, 2010 9:00am

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

Decided: Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Prevailing Party: State of Washington (Respondent)

Vote: 9-0

Citation: Pending

Court: Madsen1 Court (2010-)

Madsen

Johnson

Alexander

Sanders

Chambers

Owens

Fairhurst

Johnson

Stephens
(Majority)