Statute  RCW  9.94A.380

by Bruce Purtzer; March 1996

A not too well known provision of the sentencing guidelines statute is RCW  9.94A.380, which reads as follows:

Alternatives to total confinement are available for offenders with sentences of one year or less. These alternatives include the following sentence conditions that the court may order as substitutes for total confinement: (1) One day of partial confinement may be substituted for one day of total confinement; (2) in addition, for offenders convicted of nonviolent offenses only, eight hours of community service may be substituted for one day of total confinement, with a maximum conversion limit of two hundred forty hours or thirty days.  Community service hours must be completed within the period of community supervision or a time period specified by the court, which shall not exceed twenty-four months, pursuant to a schedule determined by the department.

For sentences of nonviolent offenders for one year or less, the court shall consider and give priority to available alternatives to total confinement and shall state its reasons in writing on the judgment and sentence form if the alternatives are not used. (emphasis added.)

This provision should be persuasive when groveling for an alternative to slammer time.

  Another guideline aid is a statistical publication that depicts sentencing experiences for all guideline crimes by county indicating exceptional sentences.  The publication is entitled Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing and is a publication of the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission.  We have found it useful in making the court aware of averages when we are afraid of being nuked.