In criminal cases where a recognizance for the appearance of any person, either as a witness or to appear and answer, shall have been taken and a default entered, the recognizance shall be declared forfeited by the court, and at the time of adjudging such forfeiture said court shall enter judgment against the principal and sureties named in such recognizance for the sum therein mentioned, and execution may issue thereon the same as upon other judgments. If the surety is not notified by the court in writing of the unexplained failure of the defendant to appear within thirty days of the date for appearance, then the forfeiture shall be null and void and the recognizance exonerated.
RCW 10.19.090
Forfeiture, exoneration of recognizances—Judgment—Execution.
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case 70 Wash. App. 646 - Matter of Marriage of Bralley (1993)
Most recently applied in State of Washington v. Edward Lee Jeglum (May 2019)
1986 c 322 s 2; Code 1881 s 1137; 1873 p 230 s 217; 1867 p 103 s 1; RRS s 2231.
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Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.