WA Supreme Court rules Toppenish murderer will not get new sentencing hearing | Crime and courts

A Toppenish man’s request to be resentenced for a murder he committed when he was 17 has been denied by the Washington State Supreme Court.

In a 7-2 decision issued Wednesday, the Supreme Court found that Yakima County Superior Court Judge F. James Gavin did not need to ask whether there were age-related mitigating factors in the case of Darren Stanley Harris because none of them Lawyers submitted this had their mutual consent form.

“We hold that if a sentencing court intends to follow a plea agreement and sentencing recommendation, it is not necessary for the court to seek mitigating and/or aggravating factors from the parties,” Justice Barbara A. Madsen wrote for the majority .

Her ruling overturned a 2023 Division III Court of Appeals ruling that Harris was entitled to a new sentencing hearing that took into account his youth at the time of the incident.

But two justices argued that the ruling would undermine the state’s efforts to ensure that juveniles charged as adults do not receive constitutionally excessive sentences.

Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic said he was “extremely pleased” with the verdict.

“It was a big case for our office,” Brusic said. “That would change a lot of cases in Washington state if we lost it.”

Brusic said if the decision were different, other inmates who were juveniles who were tried as adults could go back to court and receive reductions in the sentences they had already agreed to under plea agreements.

Murder 2011

Harris, now 31 and known as Darren Steven Arquette, stabbed Luis Negrete Morales 21 times in July 2011 while he was in a car with him and took Morales’ wallet, court documents show .

At the time of the murder, Harris was a month shy of his 18th birthday.

Originally charged with first-degree murder in Yakima County Superior Court, Harris pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in August 2012. As part of the plea agreement, then-Yakima County Assistant Prosecutor Alvin Guzman and defense attorney Scott Bruns recommended that Harris serve a base sentence of 220 months on the murder charge, with a 24-month extension on the deadly weapon charge, for a total of 244 months, or 20 years and four months. A 54-month prison sentence for robbery would be served at the same time.

Guzman and Bruns said on appeal that the sentencing recommendation was “an intensively negotiated plea deal.” Court documents include emails back and forth between attorneys as they worked out the details of the sentencing recommendation.

As originally charged, Harris faced a sentence of between 20 and about 26 years in prison.

Gavin followed the recommendation, although court records indicated he would not have agreed to it if the weapon upgrade had not been included. The increase is continuous and cannot be reduced through good behavior.

Juvenile cases

In 2017, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling called Houston-Sconiers, requiring judges to consider the mitigating factors of youth when sentencing in adult court and that the rule applies retroactively to all cases. The ruling is based on the assumption that adolescents and young adults’ brains are not sufficiently developed to avoid impulsive actions and that they are more likely to be rehabilitated than older people.

Harris initially challenged his conviction following the Houston-Sconiers ruling in 2020 and again in 2021, when the Court of Appeals Commission granted him an extension of time to file an appeal.

In 2023, a three-judge appeals court consisting of Justices Laurel Siddoway, George Fearing and Robert Lawrence-Berrey ruled that Harris could seek resentencing but that he would have to withdraw his guilty plea due to the demand for a lesser sentence Consent would violate the law, as the state argued.

Madsen, writing for the majority, said Houston-Sconiers typically involves cases where there is no agreement on the verdict. In Harris’ case, the parties agreed on the sentence and claims that Harris’s youth should justify a shorter sentence were not raised.

If both sides agree to the sentence, Madsen argued, a judge could not ask attorneys about mitigating factors because that could lead to a violation of the plea agreement, especially if there was a provision not to seek a shorter sentence. Judges are not parties to plea agreements and asking such questions would put them in the role of participants, the Supreme Court found.

“The only inquiry that should be vigorously pursued is whether the person understands the nature of the charge and the consequences and whether the action is voluntary,” Judge Mary Yu wrote in her concurring opinion.

If a judge were to inquire about extenuating circumstances, the questioning could inadvertently reveal aggravating factors, Yu warned, and undermine the lawyer’s argument in presenting the case. Yu said the court’s decision protects a young defendant’s right to privacy about how much of his life he wants to reveal in court.

The dissenters, Justices Raquel Montoya-Lewis and Sheryl Gordon McCloud, said the court ruling would eliminate sentencing review for juveniles who were tried as adults and accepted plea bargains to resolve their cases, even though they may not be of maturity have to fully appreciate the consequences of this decision.

“The majority appears to believe that a teenager can appreciate these risks with the maturity of an adult, even though we have said countless times that children are different,” Montoya-Lewis wrote in the dissent.

Montoya-Lewis said in a review by Houston-Sconiers that a judge hearing Harris’ case would have been free to carry out the weapons enhancement at the same time as the base sentence.