Case Citator › State v. Hughes

State v. Hughes

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Abrogated
Court
Supreme Court of Washington
Citation
154 Wash.2d 118
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
186 of 186
Citing cases (total)
664
Treatment dates
2006
Abrogated
A reviewed court treats this case as abrogated by later authority. State v. Hughes has been abrogated in part: all 186 flagged citations have been read, with the 1 confirmed treatment listed below. Washington v. Recuenco rejected Hughes's categorical Sixth Amendment holding that a Blakely sentencing error is structural and can never be harmless; Hughes's other holdings are not displaced by that decision.
More on how this was screened

Most reviewed opinions merely reported Recuenco's treatment, applied Hughes positively, or used nearby adverse language for Hughes's own overruling of State v. Smith and for unrelated authorities or appellate issues. A dissent in In re Personal Restraint of Hall called part of Hughes wrongly decided, but the majority followed Hughes, so the separate opinion produced no court treatment.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

664 later cases cite State v. Hughes; 186 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on State v. Hughes?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Abrogated

  • The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Hughes's holding that failure to submit a sentencing factor to the jury is structural error that can never be harmless.

    Washington v. Recuenco · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    The Supreme Court of Washington reached the contrary conclusion based on language from Sullivan. See State v. Hughes, 154 Wash. 2d 118, 144, 110 P. 3d 192, 205 (2005) (“ ‘There being no jury verdict of guilty-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, the question whether the same verdict of guilty-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt would have been rendered absent the constitutional error is utterly meaningless. There is no object, so to speak, upon which harmless-error scrutiny can operate’ ” (quoting Sullivan, 508 U. S., at 280)). Here, as in Neder, “this strand of reasoning in Sullivan does provide support for [respondent]’s position.” 527 U. S., at 11. We recognized in Neder, however, that a broad interpretation of our language from Sullivan is inconsistent with our case law. 527 U. S., at 11-15. Because the jury in Neder, as here, failed to return a complete verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, our rejection of Neder’s proposed application of the language from Sullivan compels our rejection of this argument here.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Does this case still carry your argument?

Describe your facts. Ezel reads State v. Hughes and the cases that treated it, then tells you whether it still holds for your situation, with citations.

Opens in Ezel Pro.

  • Checks the law as it stands today, not only this page
  • Cites every source it relies on, so you can verify it
  • Chat, drafting and research in one workspace