State v. E.A.J.

Fourteen-year-old E.A.J. and the State of Washington entered into a plea agreement on December 5, 2001. E.A.J. entered an Alford1 plea to single counts of first degree rape, second degree assault, and unlawful imprisonment — crimes that he was charged with having committed the previous March, about 10 weeks before his 14th birthday. The State agreed to reduce an initial charge of first degree kidnapping to unlawful imprisonment and to recommend a manifest injustice disposition, stated as follows: “The Probation Department is asking for a [manifest injustice] to approximately age 20 and the…