State v. Shultz

Washington Supreme Court

Decided July 29, 1999

Washington Supreme Court · decided 1999-07-29

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“constitutionality ... is a question of law which is reviewed de novo.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Shultz

Relies on Island County v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1999-07-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently May 2012 · most notably State v. Varga (2004), State v. Smith (2009)

29 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Sanders, J.

¶1(concurring) — I agree in result but reject the self-contradicting claim that a statute may be at once presumed constitutional unless proved otherwise “beyond a reasonable doubt” while, at the same time, its “constitutionality ... is a question of law which is reviewed de novo.” Majority at 642-43. For the reasons expressed in Island County v. State, 135 Wn.2d 141, 155-68, 955 P.2d 377 (1998) (Sanders, J, concurring), I venture the majority got it right the second time.

¶2Reconsideration denied October 14, 1999.