# State v. Riles

> Washington Supreme Court · June 4, 1998 · 135 Wash. 2d 326

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4711492

## Case

- **Full name:** The State of Washington v. Roland Erik Riles, Petitioner The State of Washington v. Richard Lee Gholston
- **Court:** Washington Supreme Court
- **Decided:** June 4, 1998
- **Citations:** 135 Wash. 2d 326; 957 P.2d 655
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Alexander
- **Judges:** Smith, Alexander
- **Cited by:** 197 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Abrogated on other grounds by State v. Valencia, 169 Wash. 2d 782 (2010).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4711492

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that a prohibition on a convicted sex offender’s contact with minors was not a justified limitation on freedom of association rights where the victim was not a minor (citing Riley, 121 Wn.2d at 37-38)
- finding that a restriction instructing the defendant to "avoid places where minors congregate” and not to "frequent places where minors are known to congregate” was not impermissibly vague
- observing that although a defendant's constitutional rights during community placement are subject to certain infringements authorized by the Sentencing Reform Act, "the defendant's freedom of association may be restricted only to the extent it is reasonably necessary to accom…
- recognizing that imposing “polygraph testing on sex offenders is consistent with [Washington’s statutory guidelines] for therapists working with sex offenders”

## Opinion text

Alexander, J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part) — I agree with the decision of the majority, except in one particular. In my judgment, both trial courts erred in requiring the defendant before them for sentencing to submit to polygraph testing as a condition of community placement. I reach that conclusion because the sentencing court is limited by RCW 9.94A.120(9)(c)(v) to requiring offenders to comply with “crime-related prohibitions.” An order requiring a defendant to engage in “affirmative conduct” is not a crime-related prohibition. See RCW 9.94A.030(11).
Submitting to a polygraph test is, in my view, affirmative conduct. In that regard, I entirely agree with the observa *354 tion of Division Three of the Court of Appeals in State v. Holland, 80 Wn. App. 1 , 905 P.2d 920 (1995), to the effect that submitting to a polygraph examination is not passive uncommitted conduct because such an examination requires one to affirmatively respond to numerous questions.
In support of its conclusion that the trial courts had authority to impose polygraph testing, the majority notes the recent amendments to RCW 9.94A.030(11), RCW 9.94A.120(9)(b), RCW 9.94A.120(14). Clearly the thrust of these amendments was to provide authority to sentencing courts to order affirmative acts necessary to monitor compliance with sentencing conditions. By these amendments, the majority suggests, the Legislature was merely confirming the past practice of allowing polygraph testing to assure compliance with sentencing conditions. The logic of that conclusion escapes me because it has the effect of giving retroactive effect to the amendments. This runs counter to the general rule that an amendment to a statute applies prospectively only. In re F.D. Processing, Inc., 119 Wn.2d 452 , 832 P.2d 1303 (1992). Although an amendment may apply retroactively if it merely clarifies an older ambiguous statute, there was nothing ambiguous about the aforementioned statutes prior to their amendment. In clear terms they forbade the trial court from ordering offenders to engage in affirmative conduct. We should not give those enactments the back of our judicial hand merely because the Legislature later saw fit to make substantive changes to those statutes after these offenders were sentenced to community placement. See Magula v. Benton Franklin Title Co., 131 Wn.2d 171 , 930 P.2d 307 (1997).
Sanders, J., concurs with Alexander, J.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4711492. Public record. Not legal advice.