A unanimous panel of five justices on the Washington Supreme Court determined on Thursday that federal due process rights do not mandate a refund of a $900 program fee paid by a Snohomish County woman after the state’s felony drug possession statute was struck down. The ruling, issued in *State v. Peterson* on September 10, resolved a dispute regarding whether a participant in a drug court program is entitled to recover costs once the underlying law is deemed unconstitutional. While the majority agreed on the due process outcome, the court fractured into four distinct opinions concerning the proper procedural mechanism for seeking relief and whether the high court should have adjudicated the matter.
The petitioner, a local woman who had already secured the $900 refund through a lower court order, had not been formally convicted of a crime. Prosecutors had charged her with felony possession of a controlled substance in August 2015. To resolve the case, she entered into an agreement with the state to participate in the Snohomish County Adult Drug Treatment Court. This arrangement required her to pay a nonrefundable $900 fee and waive her rights to a speedy trial and a jury trial. In return for successful completion of the program, prosecutors agreed to seek a dismissal with prejudice. If she had been terminated from the program, the agreement stipulated that her case would proceed to a bench trial based on agreed-upon facts.
She completed the program in July 2017, and the court subsequently dismissed the charge with prejudice, concluding the prosecution. The legal landscape changed four years later when the Washington Supreme Court ruled in *State v. Blake* that the state’s strict liability felony drug possession law was unconstitutional. That precedent allowed individuals with convictions under the old statute to have them vacated and to recover associated legal financial obligations. Relying on this shift, the petitioner sought a refund of her drug court fee and an order vacating her already-dismissed charge.
Snohomish County Superior Court initially granted her request, but the Court of Appeals reversed that decision. In the lead opinion for the Washington Supreme Court, Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud differentiated the petitioner’s fee from the court-imposed fines addressed in *Nelson v. Colorado*, a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision that required refunds for money collected due to invalidated convictions. Justice Gordon McCloud reasoned that the fee in question stemmed from the participant’s voluntary agreement to join the drug court program, a contract that the *Blake* decision did not retroactively invalidate. The opinion noted that it was the validity of the agreement, rather than the underlying charges, that generated the fee obligation.
Justice Colleen Melody concurred with the lead opinion. However, Chief Justice Debra Stephens, Justice Charles W. Johnson, and Justice Pro Tem. Barbara Madsen, while agreeing that federal due process did not require the refund, dissented from the lead opinion’s interpretation of the procedural rules used to file the claim. The petitioner had invoked Criminal Rule 7.8, which permits defendants to seek relief from specific judgments or orders. Justice Gordon McCloud concluded that this rule was an appropriate vehicle to challenge the order requiring the fee payment, despite the ultimate failure of the constitutional argument. In contrast, Chief Justice Stephens argued that the specific provisions of the rule relied upon by the petitioner required the existence of a final judgment, which had never been entered in her case. Under this view, the Court of Appeals’ reversal should have been affirmed in its entirety. The state has indicated it does not intend to reclaim the $900 already paid to the woman.
Justice Steven González issued a dissent, supported by Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, arguing that the trial court possessed inherent power to return funds collected under an unconstitutional law and had appropriately wielded that authority.
He contended that there was no practical difference between awarding refunds to individuals convicted under an invalid statute and withholding them from those who secured dismissal of similar charges before conviction. “A person who avoids conviction through dismissal under an unconstitutional provision stands no less entitled to reimbursement than one who pays under the same law and later sees their conviction overturned,” González observed.
He also challenged the majority’s framing of Superior Court Judge Peterson’s conduct as discretionary, emphasizing the consequences she faced had the charge proceeded to trial—including a potential prison term and a financial penalty.
Justice Salvador Mungia, in agreement with Justice G. Helen Whitener, advocated for dismissing the appeal entirely, concluding the matter had become academic. Since Peterson had already retained the funds and the state indicated no intention to reclaim them, Mungia reasoned the controversy no longer presented a live dispute. He joined the outcome but declined to endorse the broader reasoning.
Justice Theodore J. Angelis sat out the case.
The lead opinion chose not to rule on whether Criminal Rule 7.8 empowers courts to set aside charges dismissed without a formal conviction. Peterson had dropped her request for vacatur as an independent remedy, instead positioning it as a vehicle to secure the refund.
The ruling preserves existing refund mechanisms for legal financial obligations imposed through convictions later invalidated under *State v. Blake*. At the same time, it declines to recognize a federal constitutional entitlement to reimbursement for fees paid to preemptively avoid a conviction.