WA Legal Roundup - Washington Supreme Court

State v. Knippling

Knippling is up for his third strike for a home invasion. The question before the court was whether the first strike, a second degree robbery committed as a juvenile, was a strike at all. He was initially in superior court on first degree robbery charge, which was plead to second degree robbery. However, the superior court did not remand the case to juvenile court, who has jurisdiction over second degree. A conviction in juvenile court is not a strike, only those offenses which there is automatic superior court jurisdiction, or which juvenile court had declined. Here, though the second degree robbery was a serious offense, the juvenile court never had the chance to decline. Thus no strike for the first serious offense.