State of Washington v. Gene Angelo Camarata ( 2017 )

FILED
JANUARY 19, 2017
In the Office of the Clerk of Court
WA State Court of Appeals, Division Ill
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
DIVISION THREE
STATE OF WASHINGTON, )
) No. 32960-7-111
Respondent, )
)
v. )
) UNPUBLISHED OPINION
GENE A. CAMARATA, )
)
Appellant. )
SIDDOWAY, J. - By virtue of to-convict instructions proposed by the State, the
"law of the case" in prosecuting Gene Camarata for voter and candidate fraud required
the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Camarata provided false
information in Kittitas County, Washington. Yet a good deal of the State's own evidence
suggested that Mr. Camarata, who was homeless, transmitted the information from
outside Kittitas County, to either Thurston or Spokane counties, and that the information
was only relayed thereafter to Kittitas County. Because reasonable jurors could not
conclude beyond a reasonable doubt from the evidence presented that Mr. Camarata
provided false information in Kittitas County, his convictions are reversed and we
remand with directions to dismiss the charges.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In April and May 2012, Gene Camarata called the Kittitas County Auditor's office
30 to 50 times with questions about registering to vote so he could run for a political
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office. He generally spoke with Susan Higginbotham, the county's election supervisor,
who had known Mr. Camarata for many years from his contacts with the office. He
asked Ms. Higginbotham about school district and precinct committee officer positions
that might be up for election.
Ms. Higginbotham told Mr. Camarata during the course of their conversations that
he needed to reside in Kittitas County to run for office there, and he told her of two
addresses in Ellensburg that he might use to run for office: 1001 East Eighth Avenue, unit
4, and Ellensburg Chevrolet, where he sometimes slept in a boat. Ms. Higginbotham
knew the Eighth Avenue address to be for an apartment complex where Mr. Camarata
once lived but that no longer existed at that location. On at least one occasion during
their conversations in the spring of 2012 she asked Mr. Camarata ifhe was even in
Ellensburg, but he would not reveal his whereabouts to her.
On May 17, 2012, Mr. Camarata registered to vote online, using the Washington
Secretary of State's MyVote website. He then called Ms. Higginbotham to see if his
registration had gone through. She searched the voter database and saw that it had. She
also saw that the online voter registration form Mr. Camarata submitted electronically
that day listed his residential address as "1001 E. 8th Ave., (#4) ELLENSBURG WA
98926," and his mailing address as "General Delivery Ellensburg WA 98926." Ex. 2-A.
Mr. Camarata had signed the voter oath by using a signature that the MyVote website
imports from a voter registrant's driver's license.
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Ms. Higginbotham later checked the Washington Election Information website
and determined Mr. Camarata had filed a declaration of candidacy for precinct committee
officer for the county's 22nd precinct as a Democrat on May 18, 2012. The declaration
of candidacy imported "1001 E. 8th Ave., (#4)" from his online voter registration form as
his residential address. Ex. 3-B.
The county prosecutor notified the Kittitas County Sheriffs Office of possible
election fraud by Mr. Camarata in June 2012, and a detective, Darren Higashiyama, was
assigned to investigate. He spoke with Mr. Camarata at that time, who told the detective
he had been living in buses in Yakima. Yakima is in Yakima County, not Kittitas
County. As part of his investigation, the detective attempted to send Mr. Camarata letters
to the general delivery, Ellensburg mailing address he had provided and to "1001 E. 8th
Ave. #4." Both were returned by the Ellensburg post office.
In October 2012, Mr. Camarata sent Detective Higashiyama two letters that bore a
return address of "General Delivery, Ellensburg," but that were postmarked from
Portland, Oregon.
In May 2013, the State of Washington charged Mr. Camarata with one count of
violation of the voter registration law contrary to RCW 29A.84.130(1), and one count of
providing false information on a declaration of candidacy in violation ofRCW
29A.84.3 l l(l). Both are class C felonies. The case proceeded to a jury trial.
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At trial, the State called both the Kittitas County auditor and an information
specialist from the Secretary of State's Office in Olympia to testify about the MyVote
website operated by the secretary of state. The State's evidence established that the
secretary of state's office maintains two databases supporting the conduct of elections: a
voter registration database and a Washington election information database. Online voter
registration is available to anyone who is eligible to vote in Washington and who has a
driver's license or identification card (ID) issued by the Washington Department of
Licensing.
The prosecutor had the election information specialist demonstrate online voter
registration to the jury. The information specialist explained that after confirming
citizenship status and age on the MyVote website, a voter registrant is required to enter a
residential address so the voter can be tied to the proper precinct. He testified that a
homeless registrant can enter a nontraditional address in the residential address field,
describing as best they can where they reside, even (by way of example) under a bridge.
The online registration form allows an individual to put down a separate mailing address
in the event they do not receive mail at their residence or prefer to receive their mail
somewhere else.
The election information specialist testified that once all of the required
information has been entered by a voter registrant using the MyVote website, a review
page appears, enabling the registrant to edit any errors. The bottom of the form contains
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an oath that states "I declare that the facts on this voter registration form are true. . . . I
will have lived at this address in Washington for at least thirty days immediately before
the next election at which I vote." Ex. 1-B. The MyVote website imports a voter
registrant's Washington driver's license or ID card signature to the online voter
registration form. In order to complete the online registration process, the registrant must
affirmatively check boxes attesting to the voter's oath, and authorizing importation of the
voter's signature. According to the Kittitas County auditor, once the registration is
completed, the information is "forwarded" by the secretary of state to the county
auditor's office and voter database, "notif{ying]" the county of the new voter information.
Report of Proceedings (RP) (Nov. 24, 2014) at 51-52.
The prosecutor also had the election information specialist describe for the jury
how a candidate can complete an online declaration of candidacy with the Secretary of
State's Office. The candidate provides name and date of birth information, which then
imports the registrant's residential address from the voter's online voter registration form.
The website.will then show certain elective offices based on the candidate's residence
address, or the candidate can look at all county elective offices. The candidate selects the
office for which he or she wants to declare candidacy, and enters his or her name as it
will appear on the ballot. Before an individual can submit the declaration, the candidate
must declare that the information is true and "that I am a registered voter residing at the
residential address and precinct listed above." Ex. 1-C.
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The State presented evidence that Mr. Camarata had lived at 1001 East Eighth
Avenue, unit 4, in Ellensburg from at least 2001 to 2008, and had earlier provided that
address in registering to vote. It presented evidence that in 2008, Kittitas County
acquired the property at 1001 East Eighth Avenue, which it used for police and fire
department training exercises. During a fire department training exercise in December
2008, the apartment building at 1001 East Eighth A venue was burned to the ground. The
jury was presented with evidence that by the May 2012 time frame of Mr. Camarata's
online voter registration, 1001 East Eighth A venue was an unpaved vacant lot, sometimes
used for overflow and recreational vehicle (RV) parking by the Kittitas County
fairgrounds.
Detective Higashiyama testified that by 2012, Mr. Camarata was itinerant and had
no permanent address. During the detective's testimony, he identified and the court
admitted a photograph of a driver's license issued to Mr. Camarata in December 2010
that included the address of the Red Apple Motel in Yakima as Mr. Camarata's residence.
Detective Higashiyama testified he had known Mr. Camarata to be found in motels in
Pasco and a mission in Multnomah County, Oregon, and had personally met Mr.
Camarata at motels in Yakima and Pasco.
The court's to-convict jury instructions for the voter registration and candidate
fraud crimes both indicated (consistent with the jury instructions proposed by the State)
that in order to convict Mr. Camarata, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt
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that Mr. Camarata had provided false information "in Kittitas County, Washington."
Clerk's Papers (CP) at 62, 64. Specifically, jury instruction 6 stated in relevant part,
To convict the defendant of the crime of Violation of Voter Registration
Law, the State of Washington must have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that:
(1) On or about May 17, 2012, in Kittitas County, Washington, the
defendant knowingly provided false information on an application for voter
registration.
CP at 62 (emphasis added). Jury instruction 8 stated in relevant part,
To convict the defendant of the crime of Providing False Information on
Declaration of Candidacy, the State of Washington must have proved beyond a
reasonable doubt that:
(1) On or about May 18, 2012, in Kittitas County, Washington, the
defendant knowingly provided false information on his declaration of candidacy.
CP at 64 (emphasis added).
The State did not offer evidence as to where Mr. Camarata was when he used the
online voter registration or declaration of candidacy systems. Detective Higashiyama
admitted when cross-examined that he was unable to determine what Internet Protocol
(IP) address was used to submit Mr. Camarata's online voter registration form and
declaration of candidacy.
The State's evidence had established that the secretary of state's voter and
candidate databases are physically located on the servers of the digital archives in
Cheney, which is in Spokane County. Like the county auditor, who testified that voter
information is "forwarded" to the county from the secretary of state's system, the election
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information specialist described the secretary of state's My Vote website system as
"sending" voter registration information to counties, to be imported into their systems;
elsewhere, he described the county's information as "com[ing] down" from the secretary
of state's system. RP (Nov. 24, 2014) at 52, 167, 169-70.
At the close of the State's case, Mr. Camarata's lawyer moved for a directed
verdict on the basis that the State had not met its burden of proof, specifically including
its failure to prove that Mr. Camarata provided the false information in Kittitas County.
The motion was denied.
During deliberations, the jury sent the following written inquiry to the trial court:
Please give some clarification on [jury instruction 6.] (1) Did Gene need to
be in Kittitas? Or, (2) was the crime in Kittitas County[?] (Physically)
CP at 82. The trial court responded: "Please refer to, and follow, the instructions you
were provided." Id.
The jury found Mr. Camarata guilty as charged. He unsuccessfully moved for a
judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the renewed ground that the State failed to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that the false information had been provided in Kittitas
County. The trial court reasoned that Mr. Camarata waived any improper venue and that
there was sufficient evidence to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, which the
court deemed to be the proper standard of proof, that he was physically in Kittitas County
when he registered online. It imposed three months' confinement for Mr. Camarata, but
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granted credit for time served which resulted in Mr. Camarata's immediate release. Mr.
Camarata appeals.
ANALYSIS
Mr. Camarata makes five assignments of error, but we find his challenge to the
sufficiency of the evidence to establish that he provided false information in Kittitas
County, Washington to be dispositive. 1
Venue is neither an element of a crime nor a matter of jurisdiction, but is a
constitutional right guaranteed under the Washington Constitution. 12 ROYCE A.
FERGUSON, JR., WASHINGTON PRACTICE: CRIMINAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE§ 1601,
at 348 (3d ed. 2004). As relevant, article 1, section 22 of the Washington Constitution
provides:
In criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right ... to have a
speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the county in which the offense is
charged to have been committed.
The constitutional right may be waived by failing to object to improper venue. State v.
Dent, 123 Wash. 2d 467, 479-80, 869 P.2d 392 (1994). When venue is at issue, it need only
1
Mr. Camarata's other assignments of error are that (1) the evidence was
insufficient to prove that he knowingly provided a false address on his voter registration
form and knowingly provided false information on his declaration of candidacy, (2) the
prosecutor committed misconduct by misstating the law during closing arguments, (3) the
trial court violated his public trial right by conducting peremptory challenges at sidebar,
and (4) the trial court erred by excusing a juror who had previously been convicted of a
felony without inquiring into whether the juror's civil rights had been restored.
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be proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 480.
Mr. Camarata's argument has never been that venue was improper. He has
consistently argued, instead, that by unnecessarily including an allegation that his crimes
were committed in Kittitas County in the to-convict instructions, the State was required to
prove that contention beyond a reasonable doubt. "[J]ury instructions not objected to
become the law of the case." State v. Hickman, 135 Wash. 2d 97, 102, 954 P.2d 900 (1998).
Under this doctrine, "the State assumes the burden of proving otherwise unnecessary
elements of the offense when such added elements are included without objection in the
'to convict' instruction." Id.; State v. Hobbs, 71 Wash. App. 419,423,859 P.2d 73 (1993)
(the law of the case doctrine binds the State to prove additional elements included in
accepted jury instructions it proposed).
I. Hickman remains controlling Washington law
Following the original briefing of this matter and while our opinion was in
process, Division One of our court filed State v. Tyler, 195 Wash. App. 385, 396, 382 P.3d
699 (2016), in which it held that Hickman is no longer good law following the United
States Supreme Court's decision in Musacchio v. United States,_ U.S._, 136 S. Ct.
709, 193 L. Ed. 2d 639 (2016). We invited supplemental briefing by the parties and
respectfully disagree with Tyler.
In Musacchio, the Supreme Court-focusing on sufficiency review as required by
due process-held that a "reviewing court considers only the 'legal' question 'whether,
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after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier
of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.'"
136 S. Ct. at 715 (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307,319, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L.
Ed. 2d 560 (1979)).
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had analyzed sufficiency review as involving
an additional gloss under the federal law of the case doctrine when a jury instruction
erroneously adds an element not required for the charge. In that event, the Fifth Circuit
explained (subject to an exception not relevant here) "erroneously heightened jury
instructions generally become the binding 'law of the case' on appeal." Id. at 714 (citing
United States v. Musacchio, 590 Fed. App'x. 359, 362 (5th Cir. 2014), aff'd, _ U.S.
_ , 136 S. Ct. 709, 193 L. Ed. 2d 639 (2016)). This was error, the Supreme Court held,
because the federal law of the case doctrine "does not bear on how to assess a sufficiency
challenge when a jury convicts a defendant after being instructed-without an objection
by the Government-on all charged elements of a crime plus an additional element." Id.
at 716.
The United States Supreme Court is the final word on federal common law, of
course, but it was not speaking, nor could it, to the law of the case doctrine under
Washington common law. In Washington, the law of the case doctrine does bear on how
to assess a sufficiency challenge in such circumstances. We quote at length from
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Hickman, including its internal citations, to underscore how well settled Washington
common law is on this score:
The law of the case is an established doctrine with roots reaching back to
the earliest days of statehood. Under the doctrine jury instructions not
objected to become the law of the case. Stat~ v. Hames, 74 Wash. 2d 721,
725, 446 P.2d 344 (1968) ('" The foregoing instructions were not excepted
to and therefore, became the law of the case."') (quoting State v. Leohner,
69 Wash. 2d 131, 134, 417 P.2d 368 (1966)); State v. Salas, 127 Wash. 2d 173,
182,897 P.2d 1246 (1995) ("[I]fno exception is taken to jury instructions,
those instructions become the law of the case."). In criminal cases, the
State assumes the burden of proving otherwise unnecessary elements of the
offense when such added elements are included without objection in the "to
convict" instruction. State v. Lee, 128 Wn.2d 151,159,904 P.2d 1143
(1995) ("Added elements become the law of the case ... when they are
included in instructions to the jury.") (citing State v. Hobbs, 71 Wash. App.
419,423, 859 P.2d 73 (1993); State v. Rivas, 49 Wash. App. 677, 683, 746
P.2d 312 (1987)). See also State v. Barringer, 32 Wash. App. 882, 887-88,
650 P.2d 1129 (1982) ("Although the charging statute ... did not require
reference to [the added element], by including that reference in the
information and in the instructions, it became the law of the case and the
State had the burden of proving it.") (citing State v. Worland, 20 Wash. App.
559, 565-66, 582 P.2d 539 (1978)), overruled in part on other grounds by .
State v. Monson, 113 Wash. 2d 833, 849-50, 784 P.2d 485 (1989).
On appeal, a defendant may assign error to elements added under the
law of the case doctrine. State v. Ng, 110 Wash. 2d 32, 39, 750 P.2d 632
( 1988) (because the State failed to object to the jury instructions they "are
the law of the case and we will consider error predicated on them."
(citations omitted)). Such assignment of error may include a challenge to
the sufficiency of evidence of the added element. Barringer, 32 Wash. App.
at 887-88; Schatz v. Heimbigner, 82 Wash. 589, 590, 144 P. 901 (1914)
("These alleged errors are not available to the appellants, because they are
at cross purposes with the instructions of the court to which no error has
been assigned. There is but one question open to them; that is, Is there
sufficient evidence to sustain the verdict under the instructions of the
court?"); Tonkovich v. Department of Labor & Indus., 31 Wash. 2d 220, 225,
195 P.2d 638 (1948) ("It is the approved rule in this state that the parties are
bound by the law laid down by the court in its instructions where, as here,
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the charge is approved by counsel for each party, no objections or
I exceptions thereto having been made at any stage. In such case, the
Ii sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict is to be determined by the
application of the instructions .... ").
I
I 135 Wash. 2d at 101-03 (alterations in original) (footnotes omitted).
I
i
I
Washington's law of the case doctrine serves to avoid prejudice to the parties and
ensure that the appellate courts review a case under the same law considered by the jury.
II State v. Calvin, 176 Wash. App. 1, 22, 316 P.3d 496 (2013). The common vantage point is
!
particularly important in a case like this, where the additional element was not the result
of a scrivener's error but was consciously believed by the State to be a required proof,
and the defense made strategic trial decisions knowing that the State would undertake to
prove it. See id. at 23 (discussing Hobbs, 71 Wash. App. 419).
II. Sufficiency of the evidence
Accordingly, "We review the sufficiency of the evidence in light of the
instructions given." MiUies v. LandAmerica Transnation, 185 Wn.2d 302,313,372 P.3d
111 (2016).
"' The test for determining the sufficiency of the evidence is whether, after
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, any rational trier of fact
could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.'" State v. Witherspoon, 180 Wash. 2d
875, 883, 329 P.3d 888 (2014) (quoting State v. Salinas, 119 Wn.2d 192,201, 829 P.2d
1068 (1992)). A criminal defendant's claim of insufficient evidence admits the truth of
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the State's evidence and'" all inferences that reasonably can be drawn [from it]."' State
v. Condon, 182 Wash. 2d 307, 314, 343 P.3d 357 (2015) (alteration in original) (quoting
Salinas, 119 Wash. 2d at 201 ).
In denying the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the trial court
applied a preponderance of the evidence standard. Finding some evidence that Mr.
Camarata was in Kittitas County at the time he registered online (such as his use of a
"General Delivery, Ellensburg" address and his mention to Ms. Higginbotham that he had
been sleeping in a boat at Ellensburg Chevrolet) the court concluded that reasonable
jurors could have found that evidence, however limited, to be sufficient. But the court's
application of a preponderance standard was in error, because Mr. Camarata was not
challenging venue, he was holding the State to its burden of proving all elements stated in
the to-convict instructions. The applicable standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
There was too much evidence that Mr. Camarata was often not in Kittitas County
for a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he was there on May 17 and 18,
2012. His most recent driver's license placed him in Yakima County. His June 2012
conversation with Detective Higashiyama placed him in Yakima County. His October
2012 conversation with the detective placed him in Portland, Oregon. The detective
testified that he had known Mr. Camarata to sometimes live in Pasco (Franklin County),
sometimes in Yakima County, and sometimes in Multnomah County, Oregon. The State
focused most of its trial energies on establishing that Mr. Camarata was not living on
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Eighth Avenue in Ellensburg in 2012. And Ms. Higginbotham testified that in her
conversations with Mr. Camarata in the spring of 2012, he refused to tell her where he
was-circumstantial evidence that he was not in Kittitas County. Applying the proper
standard of proof, the evidence was insufficient to establish that Mr. Camarata was
physically present in Kittitas County when he provided the false information.
While Mr. Camarata focuses solely on his physical location, the State argues that
the jury could reasonably find that the information was received in Kittitas County. The
act of "providing information" implicates two locations: the location of the person
providing the information and the location of the person to whom it is provided. We
need not decide whether this is the most reasonable reading of the jury instructions,
however, because it does not help the State. The evidence presented was that by using
the website, Mr. Camarata was providing information to the secretary of state, in either
Thurston County or Spokane County, not Kittitas County. Even the prosecutor stated in
closing argument:
[I]f you really want to get technical about it and think about it, it actually
goes to the Secretary of State website in Olympia in Thurston County and
then ultimately is funneled here as we learned through the testimony here in
Kittitas County.
RP (Nov. 25 & 26, 2014) at 90. Finally, the dissent touches upon, and the concurrence
examines, whether Mr. Camarata could "knowingly provide false information in Kittitas
County, Washington" by conveying false electronic information to Spokane or Thurston
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county that was then either retrieved by a Kittitas County user or transmitted to a Kittitas
Count user by a third party. Importantly, we need not approach this as a question of
statutory construction to be applied in other cases. The prosecutor now agrees that it was
a mistake to include location as an element of the election offenses. We never expect to
see this instructional issue again. We need only decide whether, in this case, the State's
evidence was sufficient to prove that Mr. Camarata knowingly provided false information
in Kittitas County on May 17 and 18, 2012.
As the concurring opinion demonstrates, it is not clear even from the full
transcribed trial record whether, when or how electronic information received by the
Secretary of State is affirmatively forwarded to counties, or if that information is simply
accessible by county election personnel. If the State's evidence fell short of showing
when or how that ordinarily occurs, then it necessarily fell short of proving beyond a
reasonable doubt that Mr. Camarata knew when and how it would occur when he
completed his voter application and declaration of candidacy on the Secretary of State's
website.
As Mr. Camarata points out, he "does not argue that the law or the Legislature
requires the State to prove he was present in Kittitas County when he submitted his
applications ... [b ]ut, the plain language of the jury instructions requires [that] proof."
Reply Br. at 5. The evidence is insufficient to prove that additional element of the "law
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No. 32960-7-111
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of this case." We reverse the convictions and remand with directions to dismiss the
charges.
A majority of the panel has determined this opinion will not be printed in the
Washington Appellate Reports, but it will be filed for public record pursuant to RCW
2.06.040:
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No. 32960-7-III
FEARING, C.J. (concurring)-! concur in the conclusion of the astute lead author
that the law of the case doctrine, as applied to jury instructions, remains the law in
Washington State, at least until the Washington Supreme Court overrules State v.
Hickman, 135 Wash. 2d 97, 954 P.2d 900 (1998). Therefore, the State needed to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that Gene Camarata committed the charged crimes in Kittitas
County. I also concur in the lead author's decision to dismiss the charges against Gene
Camarata.
I pen a concurring opinion because I disagree with the reasoning employed by the
lead author. The lead author concludes that insufficient evidence supports a jury
determination that Gene Camarata committed the crimes in Kittitas County. The lead
author notes that the State presented no information as to where Camarata sat when he
completed the electronic voter registration and candidate application forms, Camarata
sent the forms to Thurston or Spokane County, and any arrival ofCamarata's false
information in Kittitas County was indirect. The dissenting author concludes that the
State presented sufficient evidence to convict because Kittitas County received the false
information. I am unable to agree with either the lead author or the dissenting author,
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because we lack legal guidelines to assist in determining the situs of the crimes of
providing a false statement when registering to vote and when applying as a candidate for
office. Neither author cites any authority, let alone Washington law, that demarcates the
locus of the crimes. To answer this question, I would need to review foreign law and,
even then, I might only be guessing as to the correct answer to the question.
My uncertainty as to resolving this appeal begs a critical question. If I, as an
appellate judge, need to spend hours of legal research to ascertain the county of the
crimes and still arrive at a debatable answer, how could a jury of laypeople decide
whether Gene Camarata committed the alleged offenses in Kittitas County? Along these
lines, the jury instructions failed to intelligently notify the jurors as to how to decide
whether Camarata committed the crimes in Kittitas County. The jurors were left to guess
and to construct the law when resolving whether to convict Camarata. For these reasons,
I would resolve the appeal on the ground that the jury instructions were unduly vague.
Gene Camarata did not object to the jury instructions. Therefore, we cannot
reverse the case on unreliable jury instructions unless the instructions were
unconstitutional and any error in instructing the jury was manifest constitutional error. I
consider the opaque instructions to be an obvious constitutional mistake.
Jury instruction 6 told the Camarata jury: "To convict the defendant of the crime
of [v]iolation of [v]oter [r]egistration [l]aw, the State of Washington must have proved
beyond a reasonable doubt that[,] ... [o]n or about May 17, 2012, in Kittitas County,
Washington, the defendant knowingly provided false information on an application for
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voter registration." Clerk's Papers (CP) at 62 (emphasis added). Jury instruction 8
informed the jury: "To convict the defendant of the crime of Providing False Information
on [a] Declaration of Candidacy, the State of Washington must have proved beyond a
reasonable doubt that[,] ... [o]n or about May 18, 2012, in Kittitas County, Washington,
the defendant knowingly provided false information on his declaration of candidacy."
CP at 64 (emphasis added). The jurors were given no standards or principles of law to
determine whether the crime was committed in Kittitas County.
Gene Camarata likely sat outside Kittitas County when he completed and sent by
e-mail the voter registration and candidate registration forms to the Washington secretary
of state's office in Thurston or Spokane County. The jury, as the trier of fact, could have
discussed and resolved the location of Camarata at the time he sent the applications to the
secretary of state's website. Nevertheless, the jury would then need to speculate as to
whether one commits a crime in a named county when he pressed a computer's send
button in another county to propel the information to a third county.
The use of the Internet raises new questions as to the location or locations of
crimes, particularly when the Internet, at the half speed of light, spreads false information
to the ends of the earth. The jury instructions failed to notify the jury as to whether a
crime of providing false information by the Internet occurs at the location of the
dispatcher, the location of a server to which authorities download the information, the
location of where a viewer sees the false information, two of the three, or all three. The
jury instructions did not inform the jury as to whether the crimes charged could be
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committed in more than one county or whether the jury had to isolate one county as the
sole location of the crimes.
The lead author emphasizes that Gene Camarata sent the false information to a
secretary of state server in Spokane County or Thurston County and the secretary of
state's server is the official database of voter registration. Nevertheless, this analysis fails
to note that somehow officials in Kittitas County viewed the false information. Also,
Gene Camarata probably expected the information to be seen in Kittitas County. Still the
jury needed to speculate as to whether someone's anticipated view of the information in
Kittitas County constituted the crime of knowingly providing false information in the
county.
Some testimony suggests that Kittitas County downloaded the information on its
own database or stored the information on one of its computers. Kittitas County Auditor
Jerry Pettit testified that, once a person, who lives in Kittitas County, registers at the
secretary of state's website, the secretary of state's database forwards the information to
Kittitas County for its database. Pettit also testified that the secretary of state's computer
system sends Kittitas County an electronic submission on the day that a Kittitas County
voter registers. Camarata' s registration "moved forward" to the Kittitas County database.
Deputy Auditor Susan Higginbotham stated that exhibit 3A is the online submittal of
Gene Camarata for his voter registration that Kittitas County received through its election
management system. These facts may suggest that the crime was committed in Kittitas
County, but the jury was not informed whether downloading the false information onto a
4
No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
computer located in Kittitas County supports a verdict that the crime was committed in
Kittitas County.
Other testimony suggests that Kittitas County never downloaded any information
onto a county computer. Susan Higginbotham testified that, on May 17, 2012, she found
that Camarata registered to vote at 1001 East Eighth, No. 4. She did not explicitly
indicate how she "found" the information. Higginbotham testified that, before finding
the information, she checked with the voter registration database and with the
Washington elections information database. The jury was left to guess whether
Higginbotham referred to the secretary of state's voter registration database or a Kittitas
County voter registration database.
In later testimony, Susan Higginbotham declared that, after Gene Camarata called
her to determine if his voter registration had "gone through," she accessed and searched
the secretary of state's database, not the Kittitas County database, by using her
credentials. Exhibit 2A, Gene Camarata's voter registration application, and exhibit 2B,
the result of Susan Higginbotham's search for information about Camarata's voter
registration, came from the State of Washington database, not the Kittitas County
database. RP 109.
Exhibit 3B is a screen print of Gene Camarata's declaration of candidacy from the
election information system for precinct committee officer of precinct 22 as a Democrat
submitted on May 18, 2012. In testimony of Jerry Pettit and Nicholas Pharris, the
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No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
election information system is a secretary of state's database. One may wonder why a
screenshot of a State database was needed if Kittitas County downloaded the information.
According to secretary of state employee Nicholas Pharris, county auditors and
election staff may use an internet based interface and sign into the secretary of state's
voter registration database and perform transactions there. Each county has an election
management system which maintains its voter records and connects over the web to the
voter registration database, which sends new registrations and updates to registrations.
Nicholas Pharris also testified that exhibit 2A and 2B, information on Gene
Camarata's voter registration, was sent to the county for input into the county's voter
registration system. Yet, he also stated that Kittitas County could "look" at the
information, as if county officials are still accessing the secretary of state site.
Nicholas Pharris identified exhibit 3, the exhibit concerning Gene Camarata's
declaration of candidacy, as coming from the secretary of state's Washington election
information database that stores information on jurisdictions and the offices and
candidates who file for the offices. Pharris stated that the Kittitas County auditor "could
view and look at" this information through use of a password. Report of Proceedings
(RP) (Nov. 24, 2014) at 170. This testimony might suggest that the declaration of
candidacy was never downloaded onto a Kittitas County computer. Nevertheless, the
jury was given no guidelines as to whether the location of any download could be the site
of the crime.
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No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
Nicholas Pharris testified that the voter registration database compiled by the
secretary of state, by statute, is the official list of voters in Washington. Perhaps then the
possible downloading of any information in Kittitas County was of no importance and
could not justify a finding that a crime was committed in Kittitas County. But the jury
was never informed by the trial court as to what facts could justify a conclusion that the
crime was committed in Kittitas County.
Perhaps my questions about what happened during the handling of Gene
Camarata's voter and candidate applications foster nitpicky, unimportant distinctions.
But the jury did not know what factors were important or unimportant in determining the
site of crimes.
Our dissenting judge relies on venue and jurisdiction cases to conclude that facts
support a finding that Gene Camarata committed the crimes in Kittitas County. United
States v. Angotti, 105 F.3d 539 (9th Cir. 1997) and State v. Woolverton, 284 Kan. 59, 159
P.3d 985 (2007). The dissenter, however, forwards no decisions in which the State
needed to prove, as an element of the crime, the location of the crime. The venue cases
aid to a limited extent because, to show venue and jurisdiction, the State must show the
situs, in part, of the crime. Nevertheless, the State must show venue or jurisdiction only
by a preponderance of the evidence. In the State's case against Camarata, the State
needed to show location of the crime in Kittitas County beyond a reasonable doubt.
A Texas court, in Sepulveda v. State, 729 S.W.2d 954 (Tex. App. 1987),
concluded that the county in which a voter registration applicant delivers the application
7
No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
constitutes the proper venue to prosecute the crime. Nevertheless, Esther Sepulveda
submitted a registration card for Bernabe Luna, who incidentally was dead, to the Nueces
County Voter Registration Department. The reviewing court summarily rejected
Sepulveda's argument that Nueces County was not proper venue, since Sepulveda
physically presented the registration card to authorities in Nueces County. So Sepulveda
lacks relevance in addition to being a venue decision. Even assuming the Texas decision
to be the law in Washington concerning the location of the crime, the jury was never
informed of the law.
Even if the jurors arrived at the same factual conclusions, the jury needed to draw
a legal conclusion from those facts as to whether Gene Camarata committed the crimes in
Kittitas County. To convict Camarata, the jury necessarily rendered the legal
determination that the indirect sending of false information through the Internet into a
county or the viewing of false information on a computer in a county means the crime
was committed in that county. To render the guilty verdict, the jury essentially became
the determiner of the law. Judges, not jurors are to be the arbiters of the law. Art. IV,§
16, Washington Constitution.
The jury was in fact confused as to what rules to follow when determining the
situs of the charged offenses. The jury wrote to the trial court:
[P]lease give some clarification on Rule Oury instruction] 6 ... [(1)]
[D]id Gene need to be in Kittitas; or, [(2)] was the crime in Kittitas County
physically.
RP (Nov. 26, 2014) at 197. In response, the trial court gave no assistance to the jury.
8
f
I No. 32960-7-111
I
'I
State v. Camarata
II Washington requires that a jury instruction must properly inform the jury of the
I applicable law. Crossen v. Skagit County, 100 Wn.2d 355,360, 669 P.2d 1244 (1983).
I
I This principle presupposes that the jury can understand, through the jury instruction, the
status of the law. At least one case mentions the need for some specificity in a jury
I
I
instruction. Gammon v. Clark Equip. Co., 104 Wn.2d 613,617, 707 P.2d 685 (1985).
Another case directs the court to determine whether more specific or clarifying
instructions are necessary to guard against misleading the jury. Roberts v. Goerig, 68
Wn.2d 442,455,413 P.2d 626 (1966). No Washington case, however, holds that a jury
instruction lacked specificity, let alone was unconstitutionally vague.
The void for vagueness doctrine is typically applied to the wording of statutes.
Nevertheless, the jury instruction in this case effectively acted as a statute. The
instruction became the law or statute of the case.
Foreign decisions support a rule that a jury instruction may be unconstitutionally
vague. In Jackson v. State, 648 So. 2d 85, 88 (Fla. 1994), the court held that the language
of "cold, calculated and premediated" in a jury instruction was unconstitutionally vague.
The court held, however, that the defendant had waived any error by not objecting to the
jury instruction at trial. In Sloan v. Delo, 54 F.3d 1371, 1378 (8th Cir. 1995), the court
held a jury instruction using the phrase "depravity of mind" to be unconstitutionally
vague. The court, however, ruled the error to be harmless. In Lara v. State, 699 So. 2d
616 (Fla. 1997), the court found a jury instruction to be unconstitutionally vague and
harmful. It vacated a death sentence. In Rogers v. McDaniel, 793 F .3d 1036 (9th Cir.
9
No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
2015), our home federal circuit found a jury instruction in a criminal case
unconstitutionally vague.
All of the foreign cases involving a vague jury instruction entail capital
punishment offenses, and many rely primarily on the Eighth Amendment to the federal
constitution. Nevertheless, none of the cases limit the void for vagueness doctrine to a
death sentence.
Gene Camarata does not assign error to the vagueness of a jury instruction. RAP
12.l(b) asks that we seek input from the parties on a question we raise on our own before
resolving the appeal on that new basis. I asked our reviewing panel that we send a letter
to counsel and direct them to address whether the jury instructions were too vague for the
jury to determine if Gene Camarata committed the charged crimes in Kittitas County and
to examine whether any vague jury instructions constituted manifest constitutional error.
Understandably, because other members of the panel decide the case on other grounds,
my request was denied.
On the one hand, if a reviewing court finds insufficient evidence to convict the
appellant of the crimes charged, the appeals court dismisses the charges. State v. Teal,
152 Wash. 2d 333, 337-38, 96 P.3d 974 (2004). On the other hand, an instructional error
typically leads to a reversal and remand for a new trial. State v. Brown, 147 Wash. 2d 330,
349, 58 P.3d 889 (2002); State v. Cronin, 142 Wash. 2d 568, 582, 14 P.3d 752 (2000).
Although the error I identify can be classified as an instructional error, I would dismiss
the charges rather than remand for a new trial. In any remand, the State should not be
10
No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
free to omit the reference to Kittitas County in the jury instructions, because the State
would essentially be amending the charges or altering the law of the case in a second
trial. The State might clarify, in the jury instructions, what evidence or guidelines the
jury should review when determining if the crimes occurred in Kittitas County.
Nevertheless, Washington law is not developed sufficiently to provide these guidelines.
The instructional error cannot readily be fixed. Therefore, dismissal remains the more
apt remedy.
11
No. 32960-7-III
PENNELL, J. (dissenting) - We are confronted with the question of where
information is located when it is provided electronically. In the present context, the verb
"to provide" is transitive. WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1827
(1993). It contemplates both a subject (the provider) and an object (the recipient). Id.
When it comes to electronic transmission, information can be provided from one location
and received in another. In such circumstances, it stands to reason that the offense of
providing false information will often encompass more than one location.
The State offered no information about Mr. Camarata's location at the time he
submitted his false voter registration and declaration of candidacy. As a result, the situs
of his offense cannot be established by looking to where Mr. Camarata's false
information was initiated. But this does not end the matter. Because the act of providing
electronic information can extend to more than one location, this case instead turns on
whether the State satisfied its self-imposed burden of proving the information was
received in Kittitas County. I believe it did.
Technically, computer-generated information is received by a series oflocations,
such as cell phone towers, routers, and servers. Testimony at trial suggested the data
generated by Mr. Camarata's online voter registration and declaration of candidacy
traveled over a series of internet connectors to a server in Cheney, Washington. Unless it
was downloaded onto a computer hard drive, Mr. Camarata's information was never
physically located in either Olympia or Kittitas County. Technically speaking, Mr.
No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
Camarata's data was only physically provided to a data center in Cheney, which is
located in Spokane County, Washington.
Analyzing the location of digital information in technical terms can lead to
surprising results, especially in the context of increasingly popular cloud computing and
remote data storage. For example, had the Secretary of State's Office contracted with a
private cloud service provider with out-of-state servers, a technical approach to the
location of digital information could lead to the curious result that the State of
Washington might not have territorial jurisdiction over a fraudulent voter registration
application. Fortunately, there is a simpler, nontechnical solution to this problem.
In common parlance, people are considered the senders and recipients of
information, not servers or routers. Mr. Camarata was the sender of the information at
issue in this case, not his computer or cell phone. Likewise, the recipient was the person
or entity Mr. Camarata's information was intended to influence, not a server or web page
manager. See United States v. Angotti, 105 F.3d 539,543 (9th Cir. 1997) ("the act of
making a communication continues until the communication is received by the person or
persons whom it is intended to affect or influence"); State v. Woolverton, 284 Kan. 59,
70, 159 P.3d 985 (2007) (act of communicating a threat involves both speaking and
perceiving, jurisdiction may be exercised over either component). Mr. Camarata
undoubtedly intended his information to impact people in the Kittitas County Auditor's
Office. Indeed, he called Kittitas County prior to sending the information and then
2
No. 32960-7-III
State v. Camarata
immediately afterward in order to make sure it had gone through. He never called
Cheney or Olympia. Mr. Camarata's information traveled to its intended target and
impacted the individuals in the Kittitas County Auditor's Office who processed his voter
registration. This connection was sufficient to satisfy the court's jury instructions. See
State v. Hickman, 135 Wash. 2d 97, 954 P.2d 900 (1998) (situs for false insurance claim
was in county where insurance company taking action located, not in county of alleged
theft).
Because the evidence showed Mr. Camarata provided a false voter registration and
declaration of candidacy to individuals in the Kittitas County Auditor's Office, I would
hold the State produced sufficient evidence to comport with the jury instructions.
Furthermore, because the act of providing electronic information can extend to more than
one location, the prosecutor did not engage in misconduct by arguing the State need not
prove Mr. Camarata's physical location in order to satisfy its burden of proof.
Mr. Camarata makes several additional claims of error. None are sufficient to
warrant reversal. Because Mr. Camarata listed a fictitious residential unit, 1001 E. 8th
Ave. #4, on his voter registration, the State presented sufficient evidence that Mr.
Camarata knew his voter registration oath was false. Mr. Camarata's public trial rights
were not violated when the court conducted peremptory challenges at sidebar. State v.
Love, 183 Wash. 2d 598, 605-07, 354 P.3d 841 (2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 1524 (2016).
Finally, because Mr. Camarata's counsel acquiesced in the dismissal of a prospective
3
No. 32960-7-111
State v. Camarata
juror with an apparent felony, he waived appellate review of whether the dismissal was
proper. State v. Cleary, 166 Wash. App. 43, 49, 269 P.3d 367 (2012).
Mr. Camarata utilized the secretary of state's voter registration website to provide
a false voter registration application to Kittitas County. His conviction should be
affirmed. I respectfully dissent.
Pennell, J.
4