In Re the Personal Restraint of Harris

The petitioners are confined in or conditionally released from state mental hospitals having been committed under RCW 10.77, providing procedures for treatment of the criminally insane. They had been charged with felonious crimes against property and had been acquitted by reason of insanity. It is their contention here that their crimes constituted "less serious" felonies, within the meaning of certain language found in the case of Alter v. Morris, 85 Wn.2d 414, 536 P.2d 630 (1975). As a consequence, they maintain, they should not have been prosecuted but rather should have been proceeded…