Washington Supreme Court hears argument on whether foreign convictions count toward offender score

The Washington Supreme Court heard oral argument on Nov. 19, 2024, in State of Washington v. Matthew Adam Lewis over whether convictions from foreign countries may be counted toward a defendant's offender score under Washington's Sentencing Reform Act. Counsel for the appellant, Stephanie Taplin, asked the court to remand for resentencing, arguing that the offender-score subsection of RCW 9.94A is ambiguous and that ambiguity must be resolved in Mr. Lewis's favor under the rule of lenity.

Taplin told the court that the statute's use of the phrase "out of state" can reasonably be read two ways: (1) to mean other jurisdictions within the United States (including federal courts and courts-martial) or (2) to mean anywhere outside Washington state's borders, including foreign countries. "Federal or foreign country convictions do not count as points under Washington's offender score statute," Taplin said, arguing that the legislature has shown in other provisions of the SRA and in the 1995 amendments how it would add categories such as federal or foreign convictions when it intends to do so.

Justices pressed Taplin on several hypothetical categories—courts-martial, U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or Guam, and tribal courts—and raised whether inclusion of a foreign conviction would require a mini-trial into the foreign legal system or a more limited comparability inquiry. Taplin acknowledged those complexities and told the court that while foreign convictions may be relevant for other sentencing calculations (for example, as a basis for an exceptional sentence or in criminal-history summaries), they should not automatically increase a defendant's standard-range offender score without clearer statutory text or notice to defendants.

The state, represented by Bill Lares, deputy prosecuting attorney for Grays Harbor County, urged the court to read "out of state" broadly. Lares argued that the term covers convictions "from courts other than those organized under the state constitution or the laws of the state of Washington," including federal and, where comparable, foreign convictions. "The term out of state is not ambiguous," Lares told the court, and he pointed to Morley and other precedent as supporting a broad reading, subject to judicial assessment of comparability and due process protections before scoring a foreign conviction.

Both sides discussed statutory cross-references: counsel and justices examined the SRA provisions that separately mention foreign convictions in the criminal-history summary and the exceptional-sentence statute and debated whether those references show the legislature deliberately omitted "foreign" from the offender-score subsection or instead left room for judicial interpretation. Taplin focused on the 1995 amendments (SHB 1140) and argued the legislature's choices in that amendment support remand.

Justices also questioned how trial courts should evaluate whether a foreign conviction satisfies minimum U.S. constitutional protections—whether by evaluating the foreign system generally or by reviewing whether the specific defendant received adequate process. Lares cited prior state decisions admitting Canadian convictions for some sentencing purposes and said courts must ensure convictions are comparable and satisfy due-process considerations before being counted.

After a short rebuttal from Taplin reiterating that Mr. Lewis's Australian convictions should not be used to increase his offender score, the court took the case under submission. The court recessed for 10 minutes.

The case record shows the parties debated statutory text, precedent and sentencing practice; no vote or decision was issued from the bench at the hearing.