State Supreme Court Says Judges Can Waive Mandatory Weapon Enhancements in Mental Health Sentences

The Washington Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that a judge who grants a mental health sentencing alternative may also waive the mandatory confinement that normally comes with a deadly weapon finding, a decision that now binds every superior court in the state.

The opinion in State v. Perrin was Thursday morning. Justice Steven González wrote it and all nine justices signed on. It affirms an October 2025 ruling from Division II of the Court of Appeals.

The case

The case comes out of Clark County. As the opinion recounts it, Scott Joseph Perrin left harassing messages for a woman, destroyed Troy Brisby's bicycle and assaulted Brisby with a sword. Prosecutors charged him with first degree assault and other crimes. 

A jury convicted him of second degree assault with a deadly weapon, felony harassment and third degree theft.

Perrin asked for a mental health sentencing alternative. The sentencing judge granted it and imposed 36 months of community custody with no confinement time on the deadly weapon enhancement. 

Clark County Superior Court Judge Nancy N. Retsinas signed the judgment in September 2023.

The State appealed, arguing the enhancement required one year in total confinement, lost in Division II, and took the question to the Supreme Court.

Two statutes pulling in opposite directions

The Legislature created the mental health sentencing alternative in 2021, on one of 47 consensus recommendations from the state's Criminal Sentencing Task Force. 

It says that when a judge decides the alternative is appropriate, "the court shall waive imposition of the sentence within the standard range."

The deadly weapon statute is far older. The Sentencing Reform Act has required weapons enhancements in almost all circumstances since 1995, when lawmakers adopted the Hard Time for Armed Crime initiative. 

That statute says that "notwithstanding any other provision of law," deadly weapon enhancements are mandatory and must be served in total confinement.

The court sided with Perrin. Once a deadly weapon finding is made and the extra time calculated, the enhancement "becomes part of a person's standard range sentence," González wrote, citing the court's 2019 decision in State v. Yancey. 

Because the mental health statute directs judges to waive the standard range, the enhancement goes with it.

The justices also rejected the State's argument that the "notwithstanding" language ends the analysis, saying the word must be read alongside everything else the Legislature has said.

Why the court got there

Much of the opinion addresses the conditions lawmakers were legislating against. It points to the long-running Trueblood litigation over competency services, including a 2015 federal court finding that jails are "inherently punitive institutions" not built for the needs of people with mental illness. 

It cites the Office of the Corrections Ombuds on overwhelmed and delayed prison mental health care, and Disability Rights Washington reports on medication access and what amounts to solitary confinement. Those sources, González wrote, suggest treatment often is not available in prison.

Measured against the Sentencing Reform Act's stated purposes, including protecting the public and reducing reoffending, the court concluded that none "are served by imposing prison time on a person who is seriously mentally ill."

If the statutes were ambiguous, the court added, the rule of lenity would produce the same result. That is the narrower ground the appeals court used.

What is left

The Court of Appeals also reversed the trial court's finding that two of Perrin's crimes were the same criminal conduct and directed that his offender score be corrected, with resentencing if appropriate. That holding was not part of the Supreme Court's review.