Matsen v. Kaiser , 74 Wash. 2d 231 ( 1968 )

Hale, J.

In 1909, the legislature, hoping to promote uprightness in public affairs, declared that any public officer convicted of a felony or malfeasance in office would not only forfeit but thenceforth be disqualified from holding public office.

The statute reads:

The conviction of a public officer of any felony or malfeasance in office shall entail, in addition to such other penalty as may he imposed, the forfeiture of his office, and shall disqualify him from ever afterward holding any public office in this state. (Italics ours.) RCW 9.92.120.

It is now invoked against the Sheriff of Klickitat County to oust him from office. Coming here on an agreed statement of facts (Rule on Appeal 34(4), RCW vol. 0), the case was initiated by plaintiff as an election contest under RCW 29.65.010 on the petition of Mildred H. Matsen as a registered voter of Klickitat County. Petitioner says that the defendant sheriff had been convicted of a felony during an earlier term of office and, therefore, under the statute, was and is ineligible to hold public office. Although the petition, or “Statement of Election Contest Pursuant to R.C.W. 29.65.010 et seq.,” as it is denominated, asked that the election be annulled and set aside, the record on appeal makes it clear that the respondent sheriff has held and exercised office since January 9,1967. Because of this, we believe that any remedy now available to petitioner would include a judgment of ouster, without further pleading or trial, for the facts and law governing both the election challenge and ouster in this case are identical. Petitioner now appeals from a judgment and order of dismissal based on findings of fact and conclusions of law entered December 28, 1966, dismissing with prejudice the election contest petition.

An agreed statement of facts constitutes the record of appeal now before us and includes, inter alia, the findings of fact, conclusions of law and the trial court’s oral opinion. From them we gather what happened.

For several years prior to August 21, 1961, E. C. Kaiser had been the elected and legally qualified Sheriff of Klicki-tat County. August 21, 1961, he resigned that office. More than 1 year later, by supplemental information, the prosecuting attorney charged him with violating RCW 40.16.020, during his term as sheriff, i.e., with the felony of misappropriating public records.¹ The appeal record does not describe the particular records which the defendant was charged with misappropriating, or concealing, or destroying, nor how it was done, but the parties agree, however, that the information charged a felony.

April 9, 1963, more than a year and one half after he had resigned the office of sheriff, Kaiser entered a plea of guilty to the supplemental information, and the court deferred the imposition of sentence for 6 months and placed him on probation. Two provisions of the order receiving and entering Kaiser’s plea of guilty and granting probation tend more than the others to produce the problem here. The first such provision stated:

Now, Therefore, It Is the Judgment of This Court That the Defendant, E. C. Kaiser, is guilty of the crime of Misappropriation of Public Record by a Public Officer, as charged, and ....

The order then placed the defendant on probation for 6 months, specifying terms and conditions. It contained a proviso that, in case of a breach of strict compliance, the defendant would be subject to immediate apprehension and imposition and execution of sentence on his plea of guilty. The second crucial provision stated:

It Is Further Ordered That if the said Defendant fulfills and faithfully complies with all of the terms and conditions herein set forth, he may, at the expiration of the period of probation, be permitted, in the sound discretion of this Court, to withdraw his plea of guilty and enter a plea of not guilty and this Court may thereupon dismiss the information filed herein and if such is done, the said Defendant shall thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from this offense; ....

November 5, 1963, Kaiser, showing his compliance with the terms of probation, petitioned the court for leave to withdraw his plea of guilty and enter a plea of not guilty to the information. He petitioned, too, that the court order the information dismissed and that he be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the information. Thereupon, the court granted this petition fully, and ehtered a written order of dismissal, November 5, 1963, which declared:

Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed That the above-entitled cause charging the defendant herein with the crime of Misappropriation of Public Records by a Public Officer be, and the same is hereby dismissed and the defendant is discharged from further attendance herein and is released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the filing of said charge.

Appellant contends that the statutes conferring jurisdiction on the court to grant probation (ROW 9.95.200) and to defer the imposition or suspend the execution of sentence (RCW 9.95.240), even though empowering the court to subsequently vacate the plea of guilty, dismiss the information and affirmatively relieve the accused of all disabilities and penalties, do not erase the conviction ab initio.

Appellant argues, too, that not only would a plea of guilty to a felony charge duly received and entered constitute a conviction of felony or establish malfeasance in office, but says that the court made a specific finding of guilt in declaring that the “Defendant, E. C. Kaiser, is guilty of the crime of Misappropriation of Public Record by a Public Officer.” This judicial declaration of guilt, however, set forth as it was in the order granting probation should not, without more, be treated as a judgment and sentence. The finding, based upon a plea of guilty, that the defendant was guilty, although legally sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the court to defer sentencing and grant probation, obviously did not, when standing alone, constitute a judgment and sentence. While a finding of guilt is ordinarily essential to imposition of a sentence, it did not in this instance represent the court’s final adjudication of guilt in the premises. Under the statute, RCW 9.95.240, the court had power to defer imposition of sentence and grant probation upon entry of the plea of guilty without including in the order an explicit declaration of guilt. Accordingly, a finding of guilt in an order deferring imposition of sentence and granting probation is not the legal equivalent of a judgment and sentence, except where, by statute, a plea or verdict of guilty shall be deemed a conviction.

Did the entry and the court’s acceptance of the sheriff’s plea of guilty to a felony charge, when followed by deferment of sentence, probation, withdrawal of plea, dismissal of the information and removal of all penalties and disabilities, amount to a conviction of felony under RCW 9.92.120, or constitute the establishment of malfeasance in office so as to disqualify the sheriff from election to or thereafter serving in any public office?

Certainly from both a moral and legal standpoint, a plea of guilty, or a jury verdict of guilty, in one sense constitutes a conviction, for the same statute which permits the court to expunge the conviction and dismiss the information on fulfillment of probation expressly declares that such plea or verdict will count as a conviction in any subsequent prosecution. RCW 9.95.240. And, of course, the entry of a judgment and sentence upon a plea of guilty or verdict of the jury, if execution of the sentence is suspended, likewise constitutes a conviction warranting ouster from office, even though an appeal therefrom is pending. In re Simmons, 65 Wn.2d 88, 395 P.2d 1013 (1964); State ex rel. Zempel v. Twitchell, 59 Wn.2d 419, 367 P.2d 985 (1962).

One of the principal reasons supporting a forfeiture of office pending appeal undoubtedly is that a strong presumption of validity supports the judgment of a court of record. It would create an absurdity in government to allow one whose guilt has been established by judgment and sentence to continue in a public office during his appeal. It is simply a matter of balancing two possible harms: the possible unfairness of an individual’s loss of public office during the remainder of his term against the inherent danger to the body politic that a criminal may exercise the powers of government.

But the seeming conflict between a case which holds that immediately upon conviction of any felony or malfeasance in office a public officer forfeits his office and the present case is illusory, because in the former a judgment and sentence is actually imposed upon the defendant, whereas here there has been no judgment and sentence. Thus, the word conviction in criminal statutes has more than one meaning; it may mean a finding of guilt in one situation—as in a verdict or plea of guilty—or in other circumstances and in a different context may mean a formal finding or declaration of guilt—as in a judgment and sentence. State ex rel. Brown v. Superior Court, 79 Wash. 570, 140 Pac. 555 (1914).

For most purposes, therefore, there exists a distinction between the legal effect of a deferred sentence, that is, one in which imposition of sentence is deferred, and a suspended sentence, where the court actually imposes a sentence but suspends its execution. In assessing one’s rights to vote or hold public office, we would say that a deferred sentence is no bar, whereas a suspended sentence would be a conviction. In re Richetti v. New York State Bd. of Parole, 300 N.Y. 357, 90 N.E.2d 893 (1950); Truchon v. Toomey, 116 Cal. App. 2d 736, 254 P.2d 638, 36 A.L.R.2d 1230 (1953).

In the instant case, the acceptance and entry of defendant’s plea of guilty by the superior court was followed by an order deferring the imposition of sentence; a granting of probation; a finding of successful probation; a permitted withdrawal of his plea of guilty; entry of a plea of not guilty; the issuance of an order dismissing the information to which the plea of guilty had been entered; and a judicial decree releasing the defendant from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the filing of the information. When these procedures are considered in connection with the defendant’s right to hold office or ouster therefrom under RCW 9.92.120, the resultant, despite the plea of guilty, does not amount to a conviction. The defendant, therefore, was not convicted within the meaning of RCW 9.92.120 which calls for a forfeiture of and disqualifies him from public office upon conviction of a felony or malfeasance in office.

Affirmed.

Hunter, J., concurs.

1 "Every officer who shall mutilate, destroy, conceal, erase, obliterate or falsify any record or paper appertaining to his office, or who shall fraudulently appropriate to his own use or to the use of another person, or secrete with intent to appropriate to such use, any money, evidence of debt or other property intrusted to him by virtue of his office, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not more than ten years, or by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars, or by both.” RCW 40.16.020.