UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE

 

ROGER W. KNIGHT,                                    )

                                                                        )

                                    plaintiff,                        )           No.

            v.                                                         )

                                                                        )           DECLARATION BY

CITY OF MERCER ISLAND, ALAN            )           ROGER W. KNIGHT

MERKLE, Mayor of Mercer Island, RON       )

ELSON, Chief of Mercer Island Police,            )

LONDI K. LINDELL, Mercer Island City       )

Attorney, WAYNE STEWART, Assistant        )

Mercer Island City Attorney, FRED                  )

STEPHENS, Director of Department of            )

Licensing, DENNIS BRADDOCK, Secretary  )

of Department of Social and Health Services,    )

GARY LOCKE, Governor of Washington,       )

and SUPERIOR TOWING, a corporation        )

doing business in the State of Washington,         )

                                                                        )

                                    defendants.                   )

____________________________________)

 

            I ROGER W. KNIGHT, declare that:

            Attached as Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of the Order Consolidating Cases and Denying Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss that I presented to the King County District Court, Bellevue Division in City of Mercer Island v. Knight, No. MIC 84199 and MIC 84268 to incorporate its decision during the hearing on April 19, 2002.  I called the clerk’s office for the Bellevue District Court at about 4:15 pm on April 22, 2002 and they told me that Judge Janet Garrow won’t sign it right away.  It was placed in the file and will probably be signed during the jury call hearing on May 17, 2002.  During the morning of April 22, 2002, I ordered a copy of the recording of the hearing that was held on April 19, 2002.  When I did, I was told that it would be in the form of a computer compact disk and that it would take several weeks for them to make it ready for my pick up.  They agreed that if I anticipate an appeal, it was a good idea to order it at this early date.  Therefore, I must rely upon my recollection of the hearing as set forth in this Declaration and upon the Declaration of Judith Calhoun to establish the following facts:

            During the hearing, Judge Garrow asked me to present my oral argument on my Motion to Dismiss the Complaint.  I started out telling her that as much as I would like her to invalidate the WorkFirst Act as a multi-subject bill contrary to the Washington Constitution, there were several other findings that had to be made first.  A more limited approach would be to consider whether the WorkFirst Act as applied to a child support order and arrearage that pre-existed the effective date of the Act, July 1, 1997, is a bill of attainder.  To the extent that nonpayment of child support has been considered a criminal matter, though this state has not had a criminal nonsupport statute since the Supreme Court of Washington invalidated it as void for vagueness in 1984, then such application of the WorkFirst Act is an ex post facto law.  But before we consider that, we will have to consider whether the Legislature even declared its intent that the WorkFirst Act applied to old child support orders and arrearages under the Smith and Cruz test.

            But before that, there was my defense based upon the State v. Dolson case, that the Department of Licensing (DOL) failed to update my address pursuant to a form that I filled out and that they failed to comply with statutory and due process notice requirements for a valid license suspension.  Consideration of this issue did not require any ruling on the validity of the WorkFirst Act.

            Thus, we discussed the State v. Dolson issue.  The judge found that because I could not produce a copy of the form that I filled out, she presumed that the DOL mailed the license suspension notice to the correct address and that I thus had sufficient notice and opportunity to be heard.  She further cited the Seattle Municipal Court case as a “constructive notice” and that I had to have understood that there might be a problem with my license.  I argued that first, the Seattle case was dismissed with prejudice and therefore, how am I am supposed to know exactly what the paperwork looked like, I did not receive it until after I requested discovery in the Mercer Island case.  I also argued that “constructive notice” was considered insufficient in Dolson.  It was the denial of opportunity for a hearing that Dolson found to be offensive to the statute, and to due process under the State v. Baker and Bell v. Burson cases.  Judge Garrow rejected that argument.  She then found that as she found that the DOL complied with the notice requirements, she did not have jurisdiction to consider a “collateral attack” on the license suspension itself.  I argued that the Supreme Court of Washington in Dolson invalidated three DWLS convictions and the underlying license suspension.  If they had jurisdiction to do that, so did the trial court whose decision they were reviewing.  Judge Garrow rejected that argument.

            Thus ended the State v. Dolson phase of the argument.

            Then something truly remarkable happened.

            I said “Okay.  We can now consider the validity of the WorkFirst Act.”

            “No we cannot.” declared Judge Garrow.  She stated clearly in words similar to “Because I do not have jurisdiction to entertain a collateral attack on the license suspension, I do not have jurisdiction to consider the validity of the WorkFirst Act.  Therefore I cannot rule on that and the Motion to Dismiss is denied.”

            After that, Wayne Stewart, prosecutor for the City of Mercer Island brought up his motion to consolidate the two cases and I stated that I have no objection to that motion.  Judge Garrow granted it.

            The clerk showed me the existing scheduling order and told me that the jury call is currently scheduled for 9:05 am May 17, 2002.  Attached as Exhibit A-1 is a true and correct copy of this scheduling order.

            Attached as Exhibit B is a true and correct copy of the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decree of Dissolution entered in In re Marriage of Knight, King County Superior Court No. 90-3-04471-1 on July 11, 1991.

            Attached as Exhibit C is a true and correct copy of the Case Payment History for myself that I received from the Department of Social and Health Services Division of Child Support at my request on April 22, 2002.

            The support order has not been modified since July 1991 and it contains no warning of any possible license suspension for failure to comply.  I worked for The Boeing Company until I was laid off on May 29, 1995.  I received my last paychecks in June 1995.  At that time I was still several thousand dollars behind in compliance with the support order, because the monthly amount ordered was only slightly less than half of my net income.  After being laid off from The Boeing Company the support debt accrued at a rate of $851.76 per month.

            Payments on the support order since July 1, 1997 include $505.59 seized from one bank account, $54.42 seized from a credit union account, the $300.00 tax refund mandated by Congress and President Bush in 2001, and $13,000 paid in four separate bail payments by my friends and relatives to obtain my release from jail during the contempt prosecution of 2000 and 2001.  See Exhibit C, Case Payment History.

            Attached as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of the response sent to me by Lawna M. Knight, Custodian of Records, in response to a Subpoena Dulces Tecum I sent to the Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL).  These records include a cover sheet where she certifies the attached documents, a License Suspension Certification signed by G. Grosvenor-Nyreen of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) Division of Child Support (DCS) on September 5, 2001 and an Abstract of Complete Driving Record printed out on February 27, 2002 listing my official driving record.  All traffic infractions and misdemeanors that I know that I have been convicted of are too old to be listed on this abstract by the DOL.

            Attached as Exhibit E is a package of discovery materials sent to me by Wayne Stewart on February 20, 2002.

            Attached as Exhibit F is a package of discovery materials sent to me by Wayne Stewart on February 21, 2002.  This package includes a cover letter by Donna McGoldrick, Custodian of Records, sent to the Mercer Island City Attorney’s office.  She certified an attached document as an official record of the DOL.  The attached document is an Order of Suspension suspending my driver’s license for not being in compliance with a child support order, the suspension effective September 16, 2001.

            I certify under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is true and correct.

 

Dated this 23d day of April, 2002, in Seattle, Washington, respectfully submitted and certified,

 

                                                            ____________________________________

                                                                        Roger W. Knight, pro se

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