Superior Court Statistical Reporting Manual

1. CASES FILED

A filing is the initiation of a case in court by formal submission of a document alleging the facts of the matter and requesting relief.

In criminal matters, a separate filing is reported for each defendant when the charging document is formally submitted. Thus each criminal case number represents one defendant and is counted as a case filing when the case number is assigned.

Criminal filings are categorized by the most serious charge on the original information filed.

Non-Charge Cases - A non-charge case is one in which the defendant is not charged with any state criminal statutes, but which is opened for other purposes such as for an extradition, material witness, or for conducting one or more preliminary appearances prior to the filing of an information. If an information is subsequently filed, the case will be counted as a criminal case as of the date the information is filed. Any proceedings held prior to the filing of an information will be recorded under the non-charge category on the caseload statistics report.

For these non-charge cases, a SCOMIS case number should be assigned, and the appropriate RCW or SCOMIS law table code should be entered in the charges field to reflect the case’s non-charge status. For conducting one or more preliminary appearances prior to the filing of an information, "00.00.000" should be entered in the charges field to reflect a case’s non-charge status and enable the recording of the preliminary appearance proceeding(s). If an information is filed subsequently, change the case record to correspond to the new criminal information: (1) on the SCOMIS charge screen change the original information filing date, and change the charge fields (i.e., type over the "00.00.000" charge and add the appropriate violation date), and (2) on the SCOMIS basic screen change the case filing date to correspond to the date on which the information was filed.

A non-charge case should not be opened for the purpose of recording a search warrant, wiretap authorization, or other non-defendant document(s); record these documents in the Document Index application.

Results for Non-Charges - The SCOMIS statewide law table and local law tables contain (1) criminal statutes cited under the Revised Code of Washington (RCW), (2) deadly weapon and various definitional RCW statutes, and (3) a substantial number of RCW statutes, local ordinances, and other law table codes which are classified as “non-charges.” In addition to recording the charge outcome for each criminal statute of the final information listed on the SCOMIS charge screen, it will be useful in understanding defendant history to also record the result code “N” for each non-charge entry.

Cases Reopened - A reopened case is one which was previously completed but is reopened to supplement or change the original case resolution (e.g., vacating a judgment, remanding a decision to be re-adjudicated).

A reopened case is not counted as a new filing.

A reopened case is treated like any other case when scheduling or reporting a proceeding. All criminal proceeding-held codes are available for use and are counted in their appropriate categories (e.g., motion hearing, omnibus hearing).

For a reopened case the resolution and completion codes and dates should be removed and the case should proceed as if it was never resolved or completed. (Example: When there is an order vacating judgment, change the resolution and completion codes and dates to blank to reflect that the case is no longer resolved and completed.) When all issues in the reopened case are resolved, enter the appropriate resolution code and date. When the reopened (and newly resolved) case reaches completion, enter the appropriate completion code and date.

This may create a very small increase in resolutions since a few cases could have two resolutions reported in different calendar years. The reprocessing of monthly SCOMIS statistics in January for the previous year will eliminate the duplications that may have occurred during the previous calendar year.

RALJ Appeals - When adding a new case to SCOMIS that is on appeal from a court of limited jurisdiction, type "yes" in the appeal field on the SCOMIS basic screen; if not, type "no." All filings with a "yes" in the appeal field will be counted in the lower court appeal offense-reporting category.

1.A. STATE INSTITUTION RESIDENT

This subcategory includes criminal case filings resulting from individuals who are currently residing in a state institution or work release program as defined by RCWs 72.01.050 and 72.65.010. These RCWs include programs operating under the authority of the Department of Corrections and the Department of Social and Health Services.

This information enables tracking of cases for which financial compensation can be obtained for the array of services involved in adjudicating criminal defendants who commit crimes while residing in a state institution (WAC 137-70).

To have institution residence cases accurately counted enter the docket code "INST" (institutional case) immediately following the docketing of the information document.

1.B. NON STATE INSTITUTION RESIDENT

Most criminal cases result from the filing of an information on individuals who are not currently residing in a state institution or work release program.

All criminal filings without the "INST" docket entry are counted in this subcategory.