Washington v. Linville (Majority and Concurrence)
Annotate this CaseKenneth Linville, Jr. was charged with leading a wave of burglaries throughout Thurston County, Washington. The State charged Linville with one count of "leading organized crime," in addition to 137 other offenses. Some of those 127 were listed in RCW 9A.82.010(4) as predicate offenses, which when combined, formed the requisite "pattern of criminal profiteering" on which "leading organized crime" was based. Some of the 127 were not listed in the statute as predicate crimes at all. The issue for the Washington Supreme Court's contemplation was whether the "joinder bar" rule of RCW 9A.80.085, permitted both predicate and nonpredicate crimes to be joined in a single "leading organized crime" information. Linville argued the State was barred from joining charges outside of the predicated offenses listed in RCW 9A.82.010(4). Linville also argued he received ineffective assistance of counsel because trial counsel did not move to sever the unlisted offenses. The Supreme Court determined the Criminal Profiteering Act supported Linville's interpretation. However, the Court did not find Linville showed counsel was ineffective for choosing to defend against these crimes in one prosecution rather than several. The Court reversed and remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
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