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State v Stark

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Penney WedBetter
Professor James Barney
LSTD502 Criminal Law
Case Brief: State v Stark
October 19, 2014

Citation: State v. Stark, 832 P.2d 109 (Wash.App. 1992)

Posture: Stark appealed upon conclusion of a criminal jury and bench trial to Washington Appellate court from in which he was found guilty of three counts of second-degree assault as a result of exposing three female partners to HIV virus on over 6 occasions where he used a condom some of the time and after vaginal intercourse ejaculated outside the vagina on one of his victims.

Upon conclusion of jury trial Stark was overly sentenced for one count of second-degree assault of 120 months or 10 years.

Stark was also found guilty in a bench trial by judge two counts …show more content…

Rationale: The courts reasoning in this case is two-fold: First it examines what is an accepted deviance by a judge using discretion to sentence a defendant and questioned whether the judge in excersising discretion so clearly go outside the scope of discretion to overly charge Stark. Two: Did judge in using discretion so unfairly sentence Stark excessively that the sentence violates state statutory minimum and maximum sentences imposed for second-degree assault. The court found that while Judges do have discretion and can exercise that discretion as that judge sees fit it is in no way a permission to overly sentence a defendant outside the acceptable range of punishment.

While the case is pre Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 also known as HIPPA, the case examines the right of a defendant to privacy when diagnosed with HIV and the right of society to be privileged to that information during a criminal trial.

The court also by upholding the verdict agreed that the evidence presented supported the weight of the evidence presented to the jury and only remanded the sentence as to the first count in its reasoning to have that part of the case remanded back to the lower court.

Thoughts: This case is a good example of judicial review of which a higher court can review the

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