Washington lawmakers explore bill to omit juvenile crimes from adult offender scores

WASHINGTON — Washington state lawmakers are considering a bill that would essentially eliminate the crimes they committed as minors when calculating their offender score during sentencing, except for juvenile crimes of murder and felony sex crimes, and could potentially let some convicted criminals out early.

HB 2065 would not apply to juvenile crimes of murder and felony sex crimes. If someone committed those types of crimes as a minor, it would still count towards their offender score as an adult, but those against this bill say the cost of resentencing these offenders and the cost to the victims is too great.

“You could be taking years off a sentence for an adult who was convicted of a crime of murder or for a serious sex crime,” Russell Brown, executive director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said.

Supporters of the bill point out the criminal justice system disproportionately impacts people of color and indigenous populations, and they say we need to move forward from punishing people twice for the same crime.

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“What we actually know is punishing people twice for crimes they committed as children does not now and will not ever make us safer,” Cassandra Butler of Collective Justice, a restorative justice organization based in Renton, said.

Butler testified in support of HB 2065 earlier this week and told the committee she was a victim of violence at the hands of another youth earlier in her life.

“What I’ve learned in my life is that my healing is not tied up in the punishment handed down in the criminal justice system, and what I’ve learned in my work is that his accountability is not tied up there either,” Butler said.

King County Superior Court Judge David Keenan also testified in support of the bill. He and his mother both landed in juvenile court as kids; now he’s on the other side of the bench.

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“She’s a retired software engineer now, and I’m a judge,” Judge Keenan said, “It certainly helped us that we’re white, but unfortunately, we’ve left people behind in prison, mostly people of color who did not escape their juvenile court involvement to become engineers or to become judges.”

Those against the bill said this could potentially affect an estimated 6,300 adult offenders, according to the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, and comes at a cost to victims who’ve already gone through the legal process. The Superior Court Judges' Association estimates the number of offenders potentially affected to be closer to 800-1,4000.

“Individuals have been told or promised here’s what’s going to happen,” Brown said, “To go back now and undo that puts tremendous stress, puts tremendous harm, oftentimes puts the victim in a place where they are re-experiencing that trauma all over again.”

Opponents of the bill also said the criminal justice system can’t handle these resentencing hearings, and the system is already stretched thin, not to mention the actual cost of resentencing potentially thousands of offenders, which is estimated to cost counties around $10 million, according to the House bill report.

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The court could still deny resentencing an offender if they have a significant disciplinary record while locked up, or the court determines there’s evidence the person will commit another crime if resentenced. The court could deny resentencing if it would have an “extraordinary adverse impact” on victims and survivors in that decision.

The bill has already passed through the House and is working its way through the state Senate.