In re Ramsey

102 Wash. App. 567
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedSeptember 14, 2000
DocketNo. 18788-8-III
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 102 Wash. App. 567 (In re Ramsey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Ramsey, 102 Wash. App. 567 (Wash. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

Schultheis, J.

— Timothy R. Ramsey is serving a 96-month prison sentence after the court revoked his sentence under the Special Sexual Offender Sentencing Alternative (SSOSA) for his 1994 conviction of first degree rape of a child. He seeks relief from personal restraint in the form of the Department of Corrections (DOC) calculation of his earned early release credit under RCW 9.94A. 150(1) at a maximum of 15 percent of his sentence, instead of the 33 percent calculation received by other prisoners. He thus claims, on several grounds, that RCW 9.94A. 150(1) is unconstitutional as applied to him.

As a personal restraint petitioner, Mr. Ramsey must show not only error, but also actual and substantial prejudice resulting from alleged constitutional errors, or, for alleged nonconstitutional errors, a fundamental defect that inherently results in a miscarriage of justice. In re Personal Restraint of Cook, 114 Wn.2d 802, 810, 812, 792 P.2d 506 (1990).

As a threshold matter, DOC seeks to dismiss the petition as abusive under RCW 10.73.1401 because Mr. Ramsey previously filed a personal restraint petition in 1998, alleging he was denied due process and received ineffective assistance of counsel during proceedings in which the court revoked his community supervision under the SSOSA and [572]*572imposed the current prison sentence. DOC contends Mr. Ramsey’s challenge to RCW 9.94A.150(1) is now barred by RCW 10.73.140 because the claim was available both factually and legally as far back as the time the judgment and sentence was entered in 1994, yet he did not raise it in the prior personal restraint petition or in another pending appeal of the denial of a petition for writ of habeas corpus.2 We disagree.

While Mr. Ramsey’s constitutional challenges to RCW 9.94A.150(1) were theoretically available to him at the time of his prior petition, he shows sufficient good cause in the context of this particular petition to raise those challenges after he was imprisoned and DOC began applying the 15 percent earned early release cap to his sentence. See generally In re Personal Restraint of Johnson, 131 Wn.2d 558, 563-66, 933 P.2d 1019 (1997). Under RAP 16.4(c), he was not under restraint in the form of the 15 percent cap versus the 33 percent cap, and thus could not have shown actual prejudice, until DOC applied RCW 9.94A.150(1) to him. And he has not previously filed a claim for “similar relief.” RAP 16.4(d) (no more than one petition for similar relief on behalf of the same petitioner will be entertained without good cause shown). See In re Personal Restraint of Haverty, 101 Wn.2d 498, 681 P.2d 835 (1984). Mr. Ramsey’s petition is properly before the court and we will consider it on the merits.

Mr. Ramsey first contends (citing In re Personal Restraint of Smith, 139 Wn.2d 199, 986 P.2d 131 (1999) and In re Personal Restraint of Mahrle, 88 Wn. App. 410, 945 P.2d 1142 (1997)) that the language of former RCW 9.94A. 150(1) (1992) applying the 15 percent cap to “a serious violent offense or a sex offense that is a class A felony committed on or after July 1, 1990,” pertained only to serious violent offenses that are also class A felonies and [573]*573therefore excluded sex offenses that are not violent offenses.3 This contention lacks merit.

Smith and Mahrle did hold with respect to serious violent offenses that the statute placed the 15 percent cap only on such offenses that are also class A felonies. But these holdings did not address class A felony sex offenses, which are unambiguously subject to the 15 percent cap under both the former version of the statute and the current amended version.

Mr. Ramsey next contends RCW 9.94A.150(1) violates his equal protection rights under the state and federal constitutions by applying the 15 percent cap to the earned early release credits of class A felony sex offenders, while other offenders receive a 33 percent reduction of their sentences. We disagree.

“The equal protection clauses of both the state and federal constitutions require that ‘persons similarly situated with respect to the legitimate purpose of the law receive like treatment.’ ” In re Personal Restraint of Runyan, 121 Wn.2d 432, 448, 853 P.2d 424 (1993) (quoting Harmon v. McNutt, 91 Wn.2d 126, 130, 587 P.2d 537 (1978)). Our courts consider article I, section 12 of the Washington State Constitution and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to be substantially identical and they are thus considered one issue. State v. Manussier, 129 Wn.2d 652, 672, 921 P.2d 473 (1996). The initial inquiry in an equal protection analysis is the appropriate standard of review—strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, or rational basis. Id. at 672-73.

Mr. Ramsey contends that an intermediate level of scrutiny applies because his lower percentage of earned early release credit makes him a member of a semisuspect class, citing In re Personal Restraint of Mota, 114 Wn.2d 465, 788 [574]*574P.2d 538 (1990). In Mota, the court applied the intermediate scrutiny test in holding that DOC’s refusal to award good time credit to a presentence detainee who was financially unable to post bail represented discrimination based on wealth. Id. at 474. Mota is not controlling here.

Because persons convicted of class A felony sex offenses do not constitute a suspect or semisuspect class, Mr. Ramsey’s level of earned early release credit involves at most a physical liberty interest that does not implicate a fundamental right. Manussier, 129 Wn.2d at 673; see also In re Personal Restraint of Whitesel, 111 Wn.2d 621, 634, 763 P.2d 199 (1988). The lower percentage of good time credit does not add to the liberty deprivation of his original sentencing. In re Personal Restraint of Borders,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
102 Wash. App. 567, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-ramsey-washctapp-2000.