Seattle, WA - The Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 1, issued an opinion on August 3, 2009 that clarifies sentencing guidelines for driving while license suspended (DWLS) cases.
The case is Washington v. Colleen K. Anderson, and it is an appeal from the King County Superior Court's Judge Michael J. Fox.
The Washington State DWLS statute provides that any person convicted of DWLS who has three or more prior DWLS convictions must face a minimum of 180 days of "imprisonment." The questions that the court answered in this appeal were:
- Can prior DWLS convictions more than 7 years old be used in determining that somebody falls into the 180 day minimum; and
- Can a 180 day sentence for DWLS under the statute be served on electric home detention?
The Court concluded that convictions greater than seven years old can, in fact, be used. Therefore, Ms. Anderson legitimately faced the 180 day sentence. The court concluded that the term "imprisonment" was vague, and therefore all or part of the sentence could be served on electronic home monitoring, which is, technically, a form of imprisonment.
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