State Of Washington, V. Sabelita Hawkins ( 2021 )

THE COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
STATE OF WASHINGTON, ) No. 81259-9-I
)
Respondent, ) DIVISION ONE
)
v. ) UNPUBLISHED OPINION
)
SABELITA LAVAUGHN HAWKINS, )
)
Appellant. )
)
ANDRUS, A.C.J. — Sabelita Hawkins appeals the denial of a motion to
vacate her 2011 convictions for felony harassment and malicious mischief, arguing
that the sentencing court abused its discretion by basing its denial on facts
contained in the probable cause certifications for the crimes. The sentencing
court’s reliance on facts contained in the probable cause certifications was not an
abuse of discretion, and we affirm.
FACTS
In 2011, at the age of 43, Sabelita Hawkins had established a career as a
registered nurse at the Seattle Veterans Administration hospital. That year,
however, she experienced a period of psychosis that led to two incidents during
which she assaulted others. In October 2011, Hawkins assaulted a coworker at
the VA, resulting in Hawkins being charged with third degree assault. Several
Citations and pin cites are based on the Westlaw online version of the cited material.
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weeks later, Hawkins stabbed her mother multiple times, unprovoked and in the
presence of her two-year-old daughter. The State charged Hawkins with first
degree assault for this incident.
Hawkins received mental health treatment while awaiting trial for the next
year, showing great improvement. On December 21, 2012, Hawkins pleaded
guilty to reduced charges of felony harassment and second degree malicious
mischief.
The plea agreement provided: “In accordance with RCW 9.94A.530, the
parties have stipulated that the following are real and material facts for purposes
of this sentencing: The facts set forth in the certification(s) for determination of
probable cause and prosecutor's summary.” The sentencing court, based on the
parties’ agreed recommendation, reviewed these materials and imposed a “First
Time Offender Waiver” sentence under RCW 9.94A.650. Hawkins was sentenced
to 90 days of incarceration, with credit for time served, which the court deemed
satisfied at her sentencing hearing, and to other conditions, including 12 months
of community custody, a substance abuse evaluation, and a mental health
evaluation. She also agreed to opt into the King County District Court’s Regional
Veterans Court for a related assault in the fourth degree conviction.
Hawkins complied with the terms of her sentence and the court entered a
certificate and order of discharge under RCW 9.94A.637 in January 2015.
In 2019, Hawkins filed a motion to vacate her convictions under RCW
9.94A.640. Her motion established that she was eligible under the statute and the
State agreed with the proposed order to vacate. The sentencing court, however,
denied the motion because the plea agreement and certification of probable cause
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detail the underlying events during which Hawkins made death
threats and chased and stabbed her mother with an eight-inch knife
and, on another occasion, became hostile and caused damage at a
healthcare facility. . . . [B]ased on the particular facts of this specific
case, the Court finds that it is not reasonable or appropriate to allow
Hawkins to withdraw her guilty plea or to vacate her conviction.
Hawkins filed a second motion to vacate in January 2020, providing more
information about the extent and success of her mental health treatment since
2011 and her difficulty in locating employment since her felony convictions. She
attached a mitigation report submitted by the King County Department of Public
Defense detailing her success in mental health treatment since she was released
from jail in 2012. Hawkins also submitted a psychiatric evaluation conducted in
2017, which indicated that Hawkins’s brief psychotic disorder from 2011 was in
remission and concluded that the VA psychiatrists who evaluated her in October
and November 2011 provided an inadequate assessment of and treatment for
Hawkins’s mental illness. The sentencing court, however, again denied the motion
to vacate on the same basis. Hawkins appeals.
ANALYSIS
RCW 9.94A.640(1) provides, “[e]very offender who has been discharged
under RCW 9.94A.637 may apply to the sentencing court for a vacation of the
offender's record of conviction. If the court finds the offender meets the tests
prescribed in subsection (2) of this section, the court may clear the record of
conviction.” The State does not dispute that Hawkins is not disqualified from
seeking to have her convictions vacated under RCW 9.94A.640(2). But even if an
offender is not disqualified under RCW 9.94A.640(2), “RCW 9.94A.640(1), by its
plain language, vests the sentencing court with the discretion to grant or deny a
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motion to vacate the offender's record of conviction.” State v. Kopp, 15 Wn. App.
2d 281, 287, 475 P.3d 517 (2020).
We therefore review the sentencing court's decision to deny a motion to
vacate for abuse of discretion. Id. A court abuses its discretion when its decision
“is manifestly unreasonable or based upon untenable grounds or reasons.” State
v. Lamb, 175 Wn.2d 121, 127, 285 P.3d 27 (2012) (quoting State v. Powell, 126
Wn.2d 244, 258, 893 P.2d 615 (1995)). A decision is based on untenable reasons
if it “is based on an incorrect standard or the facts do not meet the requirements of
the correct standard” and is manifestly unreasonable if it “is outside the range of
acceptable choices, given the facts and the applicable legal standard.” Lamb, 175
Wn.2d at 127 (quoting In re Marriage of Littlefield, 133 Wn.2d 39, 47, 940 P.2d
1362 (1997)).
Hawkins argues that the sentencing court violated its discretion by relying
on facts contained in the probable cause certifications, specifically the fact that she
stabbed her mother and became hostile at her place of work. Hawkins asserts
that, because her felony plea agreement included a stipulation that facts in the
probable cause certification were “real and material facts for purposes of this
sentencing,” the stipulated facts cannot be used "for any purpose other than for
sentencing on the reduced charges."
We recently addressed an identical issue in Kopp, 15 Wn. App. 2d 281. The
defendant in that case, charged with second degree rape, pleaded guilty to an
amended charge of third degree assault. Id. at 283. In his plea agreement, Kopp
also stipulated to the facts contained in the probable cause certification as "real
and material" for the purposes of sentencing, in accordance with RCW 9.94A.530.
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Id. at 288. The sentencing court then denied his subsequent motion to vacate the
conviction, citing his plea agreement and facts contained in the probable cause
certification. Id. at 283-84. On appeal, Kopp argued that the sentencing court
abused its discretion by relying on the stipulated facts in the probable cause
certification to deny the motion to vacate. Id. at 287.
Under RCW 9.94A.530(2), the sentencing court “may rely on no more
information than is admitted by the plea agreement, or admitted, acknowledged,
or proved in a trial or at the time of sentencing.” We held in Kopp that the
sentencing court did not abuse its discretion in relying on those facts in denying a
motion to vacate under RCW 9.94A.640(1). Id. at 288. We reasoned that, “[i]f
Kopp agreed that the sentencing court could rely on the facts in the probable cause
certification when determining the appropriate sentence, we can see no abuse of
discretion in relying on those same facts when deciding whether to vacate that
conviction.” Id. Kopp is dispositive of Hawkins’s appeal.
Hawkins seeks to distinguish Kopp on two bases. First, she contends she
did not agree that the unproven facts in the probable cause certification could be
used for any purpose other than sentencing. But we considered and rejected that
same argument in Kopp. Both defendants pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and,
in the process, stipulated to facts as "real and material facts for purposes of []
sentencing." Kopp establishes that, where a defendant stipulates to a set of facts
for the purpose of sentencing, the sentencing court may rely on those facts in
subsequent vacation proceedings. The stipulated facts were not merely unproven
allegations, but were real and material for the purposes of both sentencing and
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Hawkins's motion to vacate. The sentencing court thus did not abuse its discretion
when it relied upon those facts in denying Hawkins's motion.
Second, Hawkins argues Kopp did not address whether “a judge should
have unfettered discretion to deprive a Black person of her civil rights in light of the
criminal justice system’s role in perpetuating legalized forms of racial
discrimination.” She argues that such unfettered discretion risks the arbitrary and
racially biased application of the vacation statute, citing our Supreme Court’s
recognition of the “implicit and overt racial bias against black defendants in this
state,” in State v. Gregory, 192 Wn.2d 1, 22, 427 P.3d 621 (2018).
We note that Hawkins raises this issue for the first time on appeal in
contravention of RAP 2.5(a). She did not argue below that reliance on the probable
cause certification to evaluate her motion to vacate perpetuated racial bias in the
criminal justice system. We acknowledge that the criminal justice system has
perpetuated legalized forms of racial discrimination against Black defendants and
that the judiciary has played a role in this discrimination. We will not tolerate racial
bias, whether implicit or overt, in any discretionary decision a trial court may make.
But without evidence, we cannot reach the conclusion that Hawkins’s race
played a role in her prosecution, sentence, or the denial of a motion to vacate her
convictions. The record here establishes that Hawkins assaulted a co-worker at
the VA and two months later, assaulted her mother with a knife. Her mother
“sustained lacerations/stab wounds to her face, left shoulder, and upper back.”
Hawkins’s mother faced multiple surgeries to repair the damage from this assault
because “the knife penetrated all the way through her cheek, and cut her tongue,
which required surgery to repair, while another stab wound was deep enough to
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puncture her lung.” Hawkins was originally charged with assault in the first degree
for the attack on her mother and assault in the third degree for the assault of her
co-worker.
During Hawkins’s sentencing hearing, the State indicated that it was initially
working on a resolution of these charges whereby Hawkins would plead “not guilty
by reason of insanity” but the State abandoned that effort when it learned Hawkins
could not receive treatment from the Veterans Administration if such a plea were
entered. So instead it crafted a plea agreement that would provide a similar level
of structure and supervision to allow Hawkins to transition safely back into the
community. The State and Hawkins agreed she would enter a guilty plea to a
charge of assault in the fourth degree in district court so that she could enter King
County District Court’s Regional Veterans Court and have two to five years of court
supervision. They agreed Hawkins would then plead guilty to reduced charges of
felony harassment and malicious mischief in superior court and agreed to
recommend a First-Time Offender Waiver sentence. As a part of the deal, the
State worked with the VA to ensure Hawkins had supportive housing for up to two
years. Hawkins’s mother supported the plea agreement and the treatment plan
the VA had set up for Hawkins and expressed her appreciation to the prosecutor,
the VA, and the court for helping her daughter recover.
The sentencing court, in accepting the joint sentencing recommendation,
indicated it was impressed with the degree of thought that had gone into finding an
appropriate resolution for Hawkins. It noted that if Hawkins had been convicted of
assault in the first degree, she could have been sentenced to 5 years in prison.
The recommended First-Time Offender Waiver sentence was, in the court’s
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opinion, “a gift.” “Instead of five years in prison, you’ve been given an opportunity
to heal your life and your relationship with your mother.”
In light of the facts of the incidents that led to Hawkins’s criminal charges,
the subsequent significant reduction in those charges, the recommended sentence
that ensured that Hawkins would obtain treatment, and the sentencing court’s
acceptance of the joint recommendation, the record does not support the allegation
that Hawkins’s race, either implicitly or overtly, played a role in this particular case.
Nor did the sentencing court overlook Hawkins’s mitigation evidence when
it considered whether to vacate her convictions. It explicitly indicated it had
“carefully reviewed” the material she submitted, including the mitigation report and
psychiatric evaluation. While different courts could have reasonably viewed
Hawkins’s psychotic episode and isolated assaultive conduct as a symptom of her
disease and evaluated the mitigation evidence differently, we are constrained by
the standard of review and the evidentiary record before us. The sentencing
court’s decision not to vacate her convictions was not outside the range of
acceptable choices and we therefore can find no abuse of discretion.
Affirmed.
WE CONCUR:
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