Bin-Bellah was originally charged with first-degree assault for severely beating his mother, Darlene Maria Slade, in December 2017, causing traumatic brain damage that required hospitalization. Facing a potential sentence of 20 to 36.5 years due to his high offender score, Bin-Bellah negotiated a plea deal that reduced the single first-degree assault charge to one count of second-degree assault and three counts of fourth-degree assault. The agreement cut his potential sentence to just seven years, plus three concurrent 364-day terms.
Writing for the unanimous court, Chief Justice Stephens held that Bin-Bellah's factual stipulation that 'all counts are separate and distinct acts' foreclosed his later double jeopardy challenge. 'Bin-Bellah's unchallenged, knowing, and voluntary plea, stipulating to four separate and distinct assaults for the purpose of sentencing forecloses his double jeopardy claim,' Stephens wrote. The court emphasized that Washington's 'flexible approach to plea bargaining' allows defendants to 'choose to plead guilty to a related charge that was not committed[] in order to avoid near certain conviction for a greater offense.'
In particularly forceful language, the court rejected Bin-Bellah's attempt to cherry-pick the benefits of his plea while attacking its validity. 'Bin-Bellah seeks to retain the benefit of his bargain by enforcing the plea agreement while simultaneously invalidating his three lesser charges as unconstitutional,' Stephens wrote. 'His argument runs counter to Washington's flexible approach to plea bargaining.'
The case arose after Bin-Bellah filed a personal restraint petition in 2021, less than a year after his amended judgment was entered. Division One of the Court of Appeals had granted his petition, finding that his three fourth-degree assault convictions violated double jeopardy because 'there was only one criminal act.' The intermediate court vacated those convictions, prompting the state to seek discretionary review.
The Supreme Court firmly rejected the Court of Appeals' analysis, finding that it 'improperly disregarded the factual stipulations in Bin-Bellah's plea.' Stephens emphasized that by stipulating to separate acts, 'Bin-Bellah waived his right to contest them, as knowing and voluntary factual admissions inherent in a guilty plea cannot later be undermined on appeal.' The court noted that Bin-Bellah was essentially trying to dispute facts he had already agreed to: 'this is the sort of factual dispute that Bin-Bellah chose not to [assert at trial], and hence relinquished that entitlement.'
Justice Gordon McCloud wrote a pointed concurrence that, while joining the majority's legal analysis, criticized the practice of allowing defendants to plead guilty to 'completely fictitious charges.' McCloud wrote: 'The parties made up a story about what happened. They formalized the story with a plea agreement document. They recited the fiction on the record in open court.' She argued that such practices 'lack transparency' and 'undermine open, clear, and predictable outcomes in the criminal justice system.'
The ruling reinforces Washington's longstanding precedent from cases like State v. Bao Sheng Zhao and In re Personal Restraint of Barr, which permit charge bargaining to amended charges that have no independent factual basis, provided the plea is voluntary and knowing and there was a factual basis for the original charge. The court noted that this flexibility 'enables the parties to arrive at a mutually agreeable sentence' and allows defendants to 'avoid conviction on a strike offense or on an offense that creates negative immigration consequences.'