Appeals court upholds Quincy man's convictions

QUINCY — A Quincy man’s appeal to have his convictions overturned was denied by the Washington Court of Appeals, Division 3. The court did however find error in the man’s sentence and ruled a re-sentencing is in order.

Police first started investigating Silver Garcia, of Quincy, after a high-speed chase in Quincy. Court records indicate two people had been spotted in the suspect vehicle by a pursuing police officer and later fled the vehicle on foot. The officer reportedly conducted a “warrantless” search of the car and recovered a wallet which had a number of items that belonged to Garcia.

Police were not able to make contact with the registered owner of the vehicle. Garcia was found a few days later and ultimately arrested on charges of unlawful imprisonment, malicious mischief and assault. The case proceeded to a jury trial, where Garcia was found guilty on all counts and later received a 15-month sentence for the attempting to elude count and 19.5 months for the unlawful imprisonment count. The court also imposed 18 months of community custody for the unlawful imprisonment conviction.

Garcia appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing he received ineffective legal assistance when his attorney failed to file a pretrial suppression motion to squash the results of the warrantless search of the vehicle.

“Mr. Garcia’s ineffective assistance argument fails because he cannot demonstrate prejudice. Even if defense counsel had filed a suppression motion, Mr. Garcia fails to show that the motion would have been successful,” reads the appeals court’s decision.

Garcia also argued that the state provided insufficient evidence about his criminal history at the time of his sentencing. The state admitted its error, as at Garcia’s sentencing hearing his offender score was based on the state’s oral representation of his past criminal history.

The judges also agreed the trial court was wrong in imposing an 18-month community custody term for the unlawful imprisonment conviction. The judges noted unlawful imprisonment is a crime against a person and it not a violent offense, which in turn would carry with it a 12-month community custody term, per the Revised Code of Washington.

“We affirm Mr. Garcia’s conviction but remand for re-sentencing. Because Mr. Garcia has prevailed on two of the three issues on appeal, we grant his request to deny appellate costs,” wrote the judges.

Richard Byrd can be reached via email at city@columbiabasinherald.com.