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

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

Causes of Action - The “CLASS” field on the SCOMIS basic screen is for recording the cause of action associated with each juvenile offender case. At present there are a limited set of cause-of-action codes which are available for use, but complete implementation of cause codes will occur in the near future.

For juvenile offender cases in which there are criminal charges to be adjudicated, the FEL (felony), GMS (gross misdemeanor), or MIS (misdemeanor) codes are available; choose the code which reflects the severity of the most serious charge on the original information filed.

Three other cause codes are available for different types of cases in which there are not criminal charges to be adjudicated: TSN (transfer for sentencing), TSV (transfer for court-ordered supervision), and NON (non-charge). Following are the descriptions for these three types of cases.

Incoming Transfers for Sentencing - An incoming case that was previously adjudicated in another county, and is transferred to a subsequent county for sentencing should be (1) filed with a cause code of TSN (transfer for sentencing). It should be (2) resolved at filing with UNDS (uncontested resolution), since all charges have been adjudicated. (3) All charges that have a guilty (G) result from the final information on the transferred case should be recorded on the SCOMIS charge screen. Note that entering dismissed charges from the transferred case would compromise caseload statistics on sentencing.
(4) Enter the “TR” (transfer) result code for each guilty charge from the transferred case. This will facilitate appropriate interpretation of information on the Defendant Case History screen, since the “duplicated” criminal charges in the receiving county will be reflected as transferred following adjudication in another county. Record all hearing and sentencing information, and complete the case as usual.

Given that all charges have been previously adjudicated, the filing and resolution of a transfer for sentencing case will be counted under the non-charge category. However, all proceedings held and sentencing data will be counted as in other offender cases, based on the most serious charge at the time of the event.

Incoming Transfers for Supervision - An incoming case which was previously resolved and sentencing occurred in another county, and which is transferred by court order to a subsequent county for supervision and monitoring should be (1) filed with a cause code of TSV (transferred for supervision), (2) resolved at filing with UNDS (uncontested resolution) since all charges have been adjudicated, and (3) completed at filing with CPFD (completed when filed) since sentencing has already occurred. (4) The receiving county only needs to enter the generic non-charge (i.e., 00.00.000) and a “TR” (transfer) result code. If it is useful to have on-line information about the specific charges, then record all guilty charges from the final information, and record the TR result code for each. All information on these transferred for supervision cases will be counted under the non-charge category.

Non-Charge Cases - A non-charge case is one in which the respondent 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 juvenile offender 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, the cause code NON should be entered in the “CLASS” field, 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 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 juvenile offender 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, and amend the cause code to reflect that criminal charges are to be adjudicated (see Causes of Action, page 8-5).

A non-charge case should not be opened for the purpose of recording a search warrant, wiretap authorization, or other non-respondent 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 for re-adjudication).

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 juvenile offender proceeding-held codes are available for use and are counted in their appropriate categories (e.g., evidentiary hearing, sentencing 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.

Cause Code Migration - Cause code “migration” is the changing of an initial cause-of-action code once a file is opened. Among juvenile offender causes of action, cause code migration should occur only when an information is subsequently filed in a non-charge case initially opened for the purposes of conducting a preliminary appearance. In this instance, the non-charge cause code (“NON”) should be changed to reflect the severity of the most serious charge on the original information filed (see Causes of Action, page 8-5).

1.A. STATE INSTITUTION RESIDENT

This subcategory includes juvenile offender 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 juvenile respondents 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 juvenile offender cases result from the filing of an information on individuals who are not currently residing in a state institution or work release program.

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