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RCW 9.94A.421

Plea agreements—Discussions—Contents of agreements.

Applied in 16 court decisions — leading case In Re Goodwin (2002)

Most recently applied in State of Washington v. Dahndre Kavaugn Westwood (September 2019)

1995 c 288 s 1; 1981 c 137 s 8

How often courts cite this section

20022010201920
citing decisions per year

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.

The prosecutor and the attorney for the defendant, or the defendant when acting pro se, may engage in discussions with a view toward reaching an agreement that, upon the entering of a plea to a charged offense or to a lesser or related offense, the prosecutor will do any of the following:

(1) Move for dismissal of other charges or counts;

(2) Recommend a particular sentence within the sentence range applicable to the offense or offenses to which the offender pled guilty;

(3) Recommend a particular sentence outside of the sentence range;

(4) Agree to file a particular charge or count;

(5) Agree not to file other charges or counts; or

(6) Make any other promise to the defendant, except that in no instance may the prosecutor agree not to allege prior convictions.

In a case involving a crime against persons as defined in RCW 9.94A.411, the prosecutor shall make reasonable efforts to inform the victim of the violent offense of the nature of and reasons for the plea agreement, including all offenses the prosecutor has agreed not to file, and ascertain any objections or comments the victim has to the plea agreement.

The court shall not participate in any discussions under this section.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.