In re Pers. Restraint of Arnold

Eddie Arnold challenged his conviction for failure to register as a sex offender, in violation of ROW 9A.44.130. He argued he was not required to register because his 1988 conviction of statutory rape in violation of a statute amended in 1979, was not a "sex offense" within the meaning of the current sex offender registration statute. The Washington Supreme Court disagreed: the prior sex offense of which Arnold was convicted met the two critical prerequisites to a countable "sex offense" listed in former RCW 9.94A.030(46)(b) (2012): (1) that prior conviction was based on a statute that was 'in effect . . . prior to July 1, 1976" and (2) that prior conviction was based on a statute that is "comparable" to a current "sex offense" as defined in former RCW 9.94A.030(46)(a) (2012). The Court of Appeals felt bound by prior decisions of the two other divisions of the Court of Appeals, labeling this deference to a prior out-of-division decision a rule of "horizontal stare decisis." The Supreme Court rejected this rule, finding it conflicted with the statutes establishing the powers and duties of the Court of Appeals and the Washington Supreme Court itself: “it conflicts with court rules on those topics, it conflicts with prior decisions, and it would tend to diminish the robust, adversarial development of the law that is the gem of our current approach. We therefore reverse.” View "In re Pers. Restraint of Arnold" on Justia Law