State v. Nelson

Gary Nelson seeks review of a Court of Appeals decision vacating his exceptional sentence and directing the trial court to impose a sentence within the guideline range of RCW 9.94A, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 (SRA). At issue is whether the trial court found adequate reasons to impose a sentence below the 31 to 41 months defined as the standard range by the SRA. The Court of Appeals found no evidence to support one finding by the trial court, and held that the second two findings do not describe mitigating factors justifying a nonstandard range sentence.

We affirm the Court of Appeals…